The existing 1608 square-feet house was designed and built by the acclaimed modernist architect & builder, Eugene Weston III in 1953. Published in the Art & Architecture magazine, the speculative “mid-century modern” home offered a contemporary alternative that was not available through conventional home builders.

The design of the 450 square-feet addition uses the site constraints and the defining elements of the existing house to create an architecture that respects the identity and history of the existing and yet, harmoniously creates its own identity that is true to its time without mimicking the old.

The design challenge was to incorporate critical aspects of the existing house that are no longer feasible under current building codes. The defining elements of the house, such as the post and beam structure, open plan, low pitched roof, and clean horizontal lines were reinterpreted under the constraints of the current zoning, seismic, energy and fire codes: The existing roof was mirrored along the eaves to create the addition and a central gutter was used to collect rainwater; the existing wood siding was reinterpreted with fire resistive metal siding; the existing façade of the house was preserved on the interior of the addition and made visible from the outside by structurally isolating the new from the old using a 34-foot Glulam beam; exposed post and beam structure of the old is reflected in the exposed rafters and Glulam beam of the new; and a high performance skin and moisture control were optimized using computer simulation.