Home Addition

We were asked to design an addition to a ranch house for a couple in their 50's and 60's. It was to include a breakfast area, exterior deck, and space for a chair lift. The house overlooks a lake, and the addition was to take advantage of the view as the couples love of entertaining outside all year round. The addition was also to fit in with the existing house. Clearly we missed the mark with our first effort. Charles Moore where are you?

On the left of the photo below is a two level deck. The upper level is covered. It is connected to the lower level by a curving grand stair case. The breakfast nook is on the right. It is asymmetric in shape with a clerestory above.
Below is a roughed in view from the existing kitchen through the breakfast nook.

A birds eye view of they addition.

Next, my second attempt, and it is light years ahead. The existing roof line had an interesting rhythm that I wanted the new addition to fit into, so I used the same pitch for the addition's roof. In this version the addition is a simple stacked box with storage on the lower level and an area for entertaining on the second floor. The deck is a cantilever construction. This was done to protect the roots of near by trees. It's a huge improvement over the original plan, but it need more refining, and I'd lost much of the connection to the exterior. Also, how about I put chimney on that fire place?
A view from the lake

A view from the front of the house. The impact of the addition from the street would be minimal

the view from the downstairs patio.

View from the neighbor's house. It was important to the client that the addition not be an eye-sore to their neighbors

For the final iteration of the design I replaced the brick walls with operable store fronts to increase the connection to the outside. This necessitated the addition of a sun screen on the south west side of the addition, which can be seen below. The sunscreen had the added benefit of providing some privacy between the client and their neighbor.

Below is a bird's eye view of the final design. I added a clear story to the existing house to make up for the light lost by adding the addition onto the existing kitchen. I also cleaned up the design of the fire places. There are two fireplaces placed back to back, one for use inside, and one for use outside during Georgia's mild winters. A built in bench in the middle of the deck provides some an area to sit during parties. It also divides the Southeast corner from the rest of the deck, which can be used for grilling.

A view from the lower patio showing the open windows and the accordion door open. The entire room can be opened to fresh air and function as a covered patio or be closed against inclement weather.

A view from the lake. I moved the supports for the deck to the edges. This created a cleaner form.