Architect: in situ studio
Project Location: Raleigh, NC
Project Completion Date: 2016
Short Description: Ocotea is a renovation, demolition, and addition project near downtown Raleigh. The existing house was designed by an architect and built in 1959. Over the years, the house had been serially and poorly renovated, yielding dark, chopped-up spaces on both the main and basement levels and a badly-built sunroom on the east side. Our work was to remove the sunroom, extend the main roof line for a carport, demolish interior walls to open public spaces, penetrate the roof with several new skylights, and compose a series of floating decks, landscaped areas, and site walls that define outdoor living space.
Architect’s Statement: The existing house was very strangely subdivided into dark rooms that lacked a clear connection to one another and had surprising little access to natural light. The front stoop and eastern sunroom were failing, and all systems in the house, including HVAC and windows, were woefully underperforming. We demolished much of the interior, keeping only the two rear bedrooms in their original form. The front of the renovated house is now an open pavilion, with previosuly isolated living, dining, lounge, and kitchen spaces surrounding a large fireplace place mass. A new stair, flipped in direction from the existing one, visually connects the the basement with the main level and sends light into the darkest edge of the basement. Similarly, a new skylit master bathroom shower floods the formerly dark master bedroom with natural light. An extended main roof creates a low-slung carport and shelters a new storage box. Similar boxes on the interior define the entry and form the kitchen. Downstairs, support spaces, a small kitchen, and a bedroom surround a large rec space – these spaces together forming a fully autonomous living suite.
Type of Construction: The existing house was a wood frame atop a concrete block foundation. The roof was a low-sloped beam and panel system. The renovated house maintains the same construction methods, though the roof, which was underdesigned, has been reinforced with steel plates attached to the undersides of beams. All windows have been replaced, and all building systems have been completely redone. The new carport roof is built as an extension of the main roof of the house, replete with exoposed beams. Thin new decks have been appended to the front and side of the house, allowing the house to touch the land in a less heavy manner.