An opened and accessible space home: Bal House

This house is designed for a retired couple who desired a single-story home with open, accessible space. This house is an addition to and remodel of an existing mid-century ranch house.
The addition, located in the rear garden area, is connected to the original structure by way of a transparent hallway that allows the garden to extend into the core of the house. The addition comprises two floating volumes. The first is the bedroom wing/volume, which is located on the west side of the house. The existing bedroom volume was extended toward the rear in the form of a wood tube to accommodate an additional bedroom. This bedroom volume opens out to the garden. The second volume, which comprises the main space, houses the kitchen, dining and media areas.

The east wood wall plane of the main space folds onto two concrete walls to form the main roof plane. The main space produces large transparent openings or voids that open out onto a deck at the rear garden. The main roof plane extends forward to form the carport roof near the front of the property. A garden concrete wall stretches out from the media room toward the garden adjacent to a rear ramp and forms part of the cantilevered bench that echoes the concrete wall material in the main space.

The original structure, which houses the music room, two bedrooms and a bathroom, was retained and renovated. A new steel bay window seat was inserted at the front bedroom to replace a small existing window. The fireplace chimney was reconstructed and, along with the carport storage volume, was skinned with recycled rubber.