Project Description
2012 RADA
Renovation / Grand
This addition to and remodel of a mid-century ranch house in Northern California captivated the judges. “It weaves through the old building in a really interesting way,” one juror said. “It’s a complete transformation of space and light.” Architects Alex Terry, AIA, and Ivan Terry removed 400 square feet of the original house, leaving 950 square feet with which to work. “The old house needed to be cleaned up a little bit, but there was no need to tear it down,” Alex Terry says. The brothers simplified much of the existing detailing, including a street-facing picture window that they surrounded with a modern steel tube.
The Terrys then added about 1,000 square feet in the form of two volumes on the rear of the house: a master bedroom wing and a kitchen, dining, and media room. The additions are framed in concrete, steel, and wood, and more wood lines the interiors to give them a sense of warmth and texture.
In between the new portions, the architects tucked a curved glass wall around a sliver of planted land, granting occupants a garden view from deep within the core of the house. “From a budgetary standpoint, it wasn’t a whole lot more,” Alex says. “It brings in a little extra balanced light for the kitchen.” This detail particularly impressed the jurors; commented one: “The curved glass with that narrow angle is magical.”