Schoolhouse

CLIENT

Withheld

LOCATION

Ghent, NY

 

OVERVIEW

This project began with a single question: what does a space for making look like when it is also a space for living? Our client needed a studio that could provide a place for focused work, accommodate guests with grace, and hold its own against a landscape of open fields and sweeping views across the Hudson River to the Catskill Mountains. The building is organized as two perpendicular volumes in dark-stained wood with gabled roofs, rooted in the vernacular of the surrounding farmland. The volumes are joined by a gallery space that serves as lounge, dining room, or gallery depending on the day, a link that elevates the idea of connection. One volume holds the double-height studio and a three-sided mezzanine office above; the other, the kitchen and loft-level bedroom. A stair in each volume allows the entire sequence to be walked through without doubling back, continuous and unhierarchical.

The polished concrete floor, a quiet nod to Carlo Scarpa, transforms the space with the seasons. By day it catches light through the picture windows and carries it across the room; at night it recedes and the walls seem to float above it. The effect was unexpected, and welcome. Picture windows frame the fields and the distant ridgeline with precision, not as ornament, but as the primary source of light and the measure of time passing.

The studio was designed to be used, marked, and changed by the work that happens within it.

Featured in Ark Journal Vol. XV.

Program Elements: Studio Addition | Stair | Bedroom | Bathroom | Mezzanine Office

Photography by William Jess Laird

Double-height living room with polished concrete floors and tall windows overlooking the countryside in a Ghent, NY home by JG Neukomm Architecture
Black board-clad gabled exterior with a wood deck and cable railing at a Ghent, NY home by JG Neukomm Architecture
Courtyard between two black-clad gabled volumes joined by an upper walkway at a Ghent, NY home by JG Neukomm Architecture
Dining room with a sculptural wood table and polished concrete floors at a Ghent, NY home by JG Neukomm Architecture
Leather sling chair and wood side table beside a window framing the countryside at a Ghent, NY home by JG Neukomm Architecture
Barrel-vaulted double-height living room with stacked windows framing the countryside at a Ghent, NY home by JG Neukomm Architecture
Kitchen with a stone waterfall island and warm-toned cabinetry on polished concrete floors at a Ghent, NY home by JG Neukomm Architecture
View through a sliding barn door into a light-filled room with polished concrete floors at a Ghent, NY home by JG Neukomm Architecture
Mezzanine home office with a built-in wood desk under a barrel-vaulted ceiling at a Ghent, NY home by JG Neukomm Architecture
Home office with a built-in wood desk under a barrel vaulted ceiling at a Ghent, NY home by JG Neukomm Architecture
Bedroom with a plum accent wall, oak dresser, and a patchwork quilt at a Ghent, NY home by JG Neukomm Architecture
Bathroom with a freestanding tub and a floating stone vanity with a black vessel sink at a Ghent, NY home by JG Neukomm Architecture
schoolhouse at dusk behind trees at a Ghent, NY home by JG Neukomm Architecture
 
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