It takes a moment to notice the silence. In two side-by-side town houses from Brooklyn, dated to the 1840s and now according to the passive strategies, you will not hear DIN from ventilation systems, no noise from the streets. But while the atmosphere may be silent, there is nothing to be muffled about these houses.
Tal Schori and Rustam Mehta, friends from childhood and founder of GRT Architects, competed seven years ago at the behest of Brother-Sister customers who bought the residences as adjacent houses for their respective families. The decades had not been friendly to the Greek resuscitation structures that had changed the owner several times and had neglected, their decoration stripped. “They fell apart,” recalls Schori, who prompted the prospect of designing sibling structures for sibling owners. In addition, historical facades of a strict review and an ambitious sustainability mandate are subject to a great job.
In close cooperation with the master farmers Mark Ellison and Adam Marelli, GrT set the endangered buildings (new foundations, stormed wooden frames) while he adapted the interior to the contemporary life of two families. On the outside, this meant to return the outdoor decoration to the earliest known state, to rebuild the window shops, falls, cornices, flaps and much more in order to achieve a photo from 1940 with clever variations between the two addresses. “Our practice loves to deal with historical architecture,” says Mehta and alludes to previous projects such as the conversion of a Harlem parish hall. “We wanted to do these buildings right.”
When the exterior was restricted to loyalty, the interiors offered vessels for experimenting, with two -story volumes being carved from both houses, the rear windows are configured or enlarged and the ceiling height was added by lifting the roof and dug into the basement. “On both sides we wanted to create rooms that felt full of light and air, but were also sculptural,” says Schori. During the entire European passive house standards – where a densely sealed building envelope and a specialized ventilation system reduce the need for heating or cooling – have conducted the process. In order to maintain the historical facades, GRT stuck the necessary insulation along the inner walls, which in turn grew up to 17 inches. “We viewed it as a quilted blanket,” says Schori, noting how they inevitably assumed this design by rounding off the thresholds and posts of the triple windows. “Softness became a defining feature and a connection between the two houses.”