Dornob | Design Ideas Daily

Sandwich House: Addition Turns Brick A-Frame to Green Box

Posted: 22 Jul 2013 10:00 AM PDT

sandwich house addition

Conceptually clean yet utterly extreme, this strange-looking solution is theoretically unremarkable – a pop-up addition raising the roof and adding level to an existing home. Yet the contrast of old and new couldn’t be more vivid.

sandwich house diagram

Zawelski Architecture Group came up with this solution in part to retain the character of the existing brick structure, but also to establish an exterior zone that would still be relatively private in the face of multiple busy adjacent streets.

sandwich home plans

The hidden terrace tucked inside the top story maintains the building envelope but creates a hybrid space neither inside nor outside, and establishes the top of what the architects have dubbed the ‘Urban Sandwich’ formed by three distinctly different facade materials. In the middle zone are the most private spaces – bedrooms, bathrooms and studies – set behind limited fenestration.

sandwich house rendering

From the designers: “For us – the value of new architecture when rebuilding a small house comes from its origins – the building tradition. Although the conditions and usage requirements change, what is valuable and still possible to save, finds the proper place in the present. The new – on one hand manifests the diversity but on the other hand complements some deficiencies – the lack of greenery, intimacy, individuality. We hope the union of all these elements allowed us to create something more than just a building – a new quality in terms of culture, space, ecology, life. We tried to invent and define architecture of a local house again, from the outset.”