Ralston Creek Addition

This house and its addition form a quiet dialogue across time. The original structure settles into a steep site shaped by a passing creek, its presence defined by a modest yet enduring residential fabric. The new work, contemporary in its language, responds through measured proportion, material clarity, and a shared regard for the surrounding landscape.

The program is reorganized to acknowledge both continuity and renewal. The former public rooms on the main floor become a main bedroom suite, creating a setting that supports age in place living while retaining the essence of the original plan. The new construction carries the communal life of the home, with a great room and dining room extending toward the descending terrain to engage the creek valley more openly.

At the point where old and new meet, the dining room serves as a transparent threshold. It bridges the inherited fabric and the contemporary intervention, giving each space room to breathe while reinforcing the spatial clarity of the whole. This glazed link draws the landscape into the center of the house, softening the boundary between inside and outside and allowing the site to shape the daily life of the occupants.

The great room anchors the addition at the edge of the slope, set at a slight angle to frame the creek and its shifting seasons. Its exposed steel shear frame defines the geometry of the space and reveals its tectonic order. Rather than being concealed, this structural armature reinforces the spatial intent of the interior and establishes a subtle continuity with the grounded presence of the older house. Through this open frame, the landscape and horizon are composed with deliberation, forming a room that is both refuge and outlook.

The project resolves itself in a measured balance. The older house retains its gravity and sense of belonging, while the addition offers clarity and lightness. Together they form an architectural narrative rooted in a creek, a slope, and an ongoing conversation between past and present.