Sprawling 6,300 square feet over five levels, this family home in Brooklyn is designed as a series of interlocking spaces with their own personality.
Comprising three bedrooms plus a home gym, sauna, yoga room, two home offices and a single car garage, it’s home to married couple Walter and Elyssa. Whereas Walter works from home and runs his business from the second-floor mezzanine, Elyssa uses the top floor of the house for her yoga studio and meditation.
“The couple came to us after they lost a bid on another house that we designed in Brooklyn for a developer,” say Lead Designer David Barr and Project Principal Thomas Barry at OPerA Studio Architecture. “The broker sent them to us and helped them find a site for development. So when the clients came to us, we’re able to custom make a new home for their needs.”
The team comes up with the concept of “nesting”: one or more objects are embedded within the larger building envelope. While the private spaces are the “solids”, the “voids” around them are used for circulation and common living areas bringing in natural light. The result is that of a box within a box, with circulation space wrapping around the perimeter of the house.
The colour and material are kept minimal with primarily white volumes to reinforce the massing concept of nested volumes. The interior is mostly plasterboard painted white, with a simple white Swiss pearl fiber-cement panel as the facade.
Photo: Graham Hebel Photography
