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Residential Works
Winter and Summer houses, West Virginia (1999) This is a pair of houses designed for a West Virginia hillside. A primary concern was using the chosen builder's
talents to mximum effect for construction. The concept included a winter house and a summer hose structure both.
They are sited with a circuitous approach and slight angle apart evocative of the site and approach to the Acropolis.
Both structures are based on a shed-roofed core and matching gable combination. In the summer house (unbuilt) the core
houses guest quarters, and the gabled portion provides a large porch space for the client's communal gatherings. In the
winter house shown, the core houses plumbing and circulation functions, while the gabled portion houses the main living spaces.
Overall, the design concept rethinks conventional notions
of space and function divisions in a house. So the rooms are multipurpose and defy traditional functional assignments.
The house capitolizes on the view by being as tall as possible. The bridge at the rear spans the fragment/memory
of an old road. The bridge provides access from the main floor out into the woods beyond - it makes the house work to
facilitate interaction with nature and the site, which is a big part of the purpose of the house to begin with.
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| Approach to winter house |
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| West view showing old road incorporated under bridge |
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| Rear of house showing three stacked doors |
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| Bathroom |
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 Walker Marchetti Beach House, Rehoboth, Delaware (1998) The
concept for this house started with the simplicity of a simple Louisiana style shotgun house - basically one room wide.
The exterior form takes on a pop art simplicity related to Robert Venturi's mother's house, with a simple gable pointed
up, like and arrow to the sky. The main floor interior is an open plan with only the square of the kitchen in the middle
to distinguish the living room in the front form the dining room in the back. The roof slope and residual spaces at
either end create porches front and back which jump in scale and give a monumental feel to an otherwise modest dwelling.
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| Front view |
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| Front view, completed |
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Renovations for Dick and Edie
Lasner, Somerset, MD (1994,2000) The first phase of this work included a complete kitchen gut, and addition
of a family room and powder room to a very typical post war brick center hall colonial. Some years later, the clients
called me back (the ultimate compliment) to add a master bath and walk-in closet in the space above the existing enclose side
porch. All the work was clean and simple. The classic and conservative apporach has given the house a timeless
validity which I'm proud to stay still looks good years later.
Richard Lasner's Photography website
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| Lasner, rear view |
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| Lasner, family room interior, satined glass by me (4 panel series) |
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Pitelka Renovations, Potomac, MD (1995, 1998) For some years I was associated with
Louis Tenenbaum, a contractor specializing in accessibility and universal design work. i will always be grateful for
the experience I had working on so many different accessibility projects, and for the opportunity to fully understand the
varied nature of disabilities and their design requirements. This work included a kitchen
for a MS-inflcted, wheelchair bound client. She first had me do her bathroom, and some years later called me back to
do the kitchen. (again, a great compliment). I also did interior design work - doing finishes and furnishings for her
living and dining areas.
Louis Tenenbaum's website
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| Bathroom view |
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Meyer Nerlove Renovations, College Park MD (1993) This project consisted of 'surgical
strike' renovations to a 1968 house near the University of Maryland. Scope included adding a bathroom, renovating
the master bath, completely redoing the kitchen, performing miscellaneous renovations throughout the home, as well as designing
a landscaping plan for the large yard space. Most exciting was blowing cased openings throughout the main floor, thus
turning a traditional plan in to an open plan. Also notable was working with a German national client, whose taste stretched
the boundaries of typical DC homeowner, and thus produced some exciting and different results.
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| kitchen view |
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Greer Renovations, Washington, DC (1992) Renovations included a new kitchen, new
windows, floor refinish, a basement redo, and other renovations throughout a 1940's era rowhouse. The kitchen is
a study in how difficult a simple, clean design is to realize, but how successful it is to live with.
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| Kitchen |
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Beach House for Cathy and Meir Wolf, Southern Shores, NC (1994) This house - for
the onetime mayoer of Chevy Chase, MD - is based on a simple plan like a 'bar' building, in this case four rooms long
by one room deep. Thus, every room has an ocean view. The house is raised with arched carport spaces at either
end like an Italian villa.
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| Various construction pictures. |
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Addition to my mother's home, Nashville TN (1984) This project was designed
when I was a junior in college. it is unltimately a contextual reaction to the 1939 house it is added to. The
driveway side alludes to a broken pediment - translated in a modern manner - as a compliment to the architect-designed original
with its carefully proportioned classical front porch. The notion of a Southern formal axis was carried from the original
house (in the front door and out the matching back door) across a new open porch and through the breakfast room to a screened
porch.
The addition was also an early study in passive solar design. The cut in the
center of the mass - forming the 'broken pediment' - allows for mathematically- calculated, southern-facing clerestory
windows in the kitchen space which get direct sunlight even on the winter solstice. Additionally, the breezeway style
connection incorporates exstiing attic stairs which have been subsequently used by later owners to incorporate additional
second floor bedrooms. The possibility of doing this was my original design intent.
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| Driveway front, street front (original house) |
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| Garden front, backyard view |
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Other Residential Projects include: Renovations
to DiVito Residence, Washington DC (1999) Renovations for Rob Robertson, Washington DC (1999)
Renovations for Ms. Deborah S., Mt Pleasant , Washington DC (1998) Renovations
for Grace and Melvin Stern, Chevy Chase MD (1998)
Addition for Holly Tippett and Greg O'Brien,
Washington DC (1997) Kosher Kitchen for Stuart and Judy Rosenthal, Hyattsville, MD (1996) Kosher kitchen for Ari Zymelman, Washington DC (1995)
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