JAMAICA PLAIN STUDIO / RESIDENCE
Boston, Massachusetts

A new house with attached studio is linked by an open porch to a rebuilt second house on a shared double lot. The site planning was inspired by the nearby 1913 Boston Dwelling House Company cooperative housing which has placed the Woodbourne neighborhood on the National Historic Register. We established a kinship between the two houses by using similar exterior details. This contributes to the historic development pattern on the street, where other house types are repeated, with variations in siting and details.

The studio/house is turned from the adjoining house and laid across a south-facing slope between a venerable oak tree in the front and a hillside woodland to the rear. The tree acts as a focus for a new front garden court around which the two houses pivot. Concrete grade beams and piers allow the foundation to be close to the tree without damaging its roots. The house is designed as a backdrop for the tree.

Entry to the house is through the studio, lit from above by a large, translucent skylight. Two steps up, the main level of the house is organized like a ship's deck. Exposed structure lightly zones the space into living, dining, and kitchen areas.

This post and beam structural system is typical of early Massachusetts Bay framed houses and mill buildings.

Corner windows are oriented to the western view of Bussey Hill at the Arnold Arboretum. For a period in the spring and fall, the sun sets diagonally through the house and studio. Upstairs, two sleeping spaces are defined by a system of free-standing storage cabinets with transoms above. There is a breakfast deck off the main floor, a roof deck above the back half of the studio, and a stone terrace, accessed from the lower-level workroom below the studio.

The house and studio incorporate many environmental design strategies. Window configurations set up passive solar and cross ventilation effects. A vaulted ceiling above the stairs helps cool the house. The walls and roof are super-insulated and systems include a high-efficiency hydronic boiler, heat recovery ventilator, and a wood stove with catalytic converter.

Ashfield flat stones from a family-owned quarry in central Massachusetts and local puddingstone culled from the site are used for paths around the garden, the terrace, and dry-laid stone walls. Raised vegetable beds along the side yard and lilac and rose hedges along the street edge help define the shared garden court as an outdoor room.