small renovations and additions

south Boulder renovation and addition

The project consists of a renovation and pop-top addition to a classic 1960's ranch house in south Boulder, Colorado.  The newly-formed family required enough bedrooms for everyone but especially wanted to create a larger, more dynamic set of living spaces where the family could come together for cooking, eating and reading.

New bedrooms were placed on the two extreme east and west ends of the house and the center of the building was opened up and extended vertically to create a new kitchen and dining room, expanded living room and expansive family room.  A new curving privacy wall was built outside between the street and the house to create a semi-private terrace, capturing for use some of the typically wasted spaces of suburban front lawns.

Designed by M. Gerwing Architects

Mark Gerwing, Project Architect

Builder:  Cottonwood Custom Builders

Structural Engineer:  Gebau, Inc.

west Boulder renovation

This project is an exterior and interior renovation of an existing house in west Boulder, in the beginning of the foothills.

Originally designed in 1974 by local architect Jeffrey Abrams, the house has gone through some unfortunate changes to both the interior and exterior.

Our task is to renovate and expand the existing interior including the Kitchen and replace the existing, failing exterior materials.  Like other more historic structures, a new order is to be imposed on the existing building, but within it, a greater respect for the original design intent is exposed.

Breaking the structure down into its constituent parts and analyzing both the original design and the new uses, the design process has been one of revealing and exposing, exposition and transformation.

Designed by M. Gerwing Architects

Mark Gerwing, Project Architect

Builder:  Blue Spruce Constrution

Structural Engineer:  Gebau, Inc.

New York pre-war apartment renovation

This projects was for a complete renovation of a pre-war apartment on New York’s Upper West Side.

From the entry, a long, narrow hallway leads to the ‘back’ of the space, past the bedrooms.  A series of cased, door-like openings was created to make an enfilade, compressing this space and projecting the entrant past the private areas of the project into the public rooms.

Pre-war details were revealed, and in many cases reinvented, to blend the old building with the new technology and materials of the new construction.

Designed by M. Gerwing Architects

Mark Gerwing, Project Architect

Builder:  Neevon Spring

Lincoln Square renovation, Chicago

Designed to maximize the live/work life of the artisan/craftsman owner, this house renovation combines a number of different traditions to make a unique series of spaces. The owner, an accomplished craftsman of shoji screens and Japanese tonsu chests, wanted a house that could be more flexible as both a home and showroom. Like many renovations, a careful analysis of the existing structure revealed a few curious surprises. The existing second floor was supported on a number of beams that radiated, pinwheel-like, from a hall closet.

By removing almost all of the interior walls of the old house, the space could than be opened up for larger gatherings. A series of shoji screens located along the position of the old interior walls allows each of the previously existing rooms to be reconstituted, or by sliding the screens back shifted to create a completely open space around the former closet. This closet became the center of the house, a place of honor for newly created objects, functioning like a paper lantern lit from a new skylight and glass floor above.

Designed with James Walker, David Leary and Katherine Iverson Builder: by Owner Structural Engineer: John Trankina Photography: Craig Klucina and James Walker

Chestnut Street condo, Chicago

Encompassing a large section of the 42nd floor a residential tower immediately off Michigan Avenue, this project consisted of the entire renovation of the 1500 square foot unit. With panoramic views of Lake Michigan to the east, Chicago's North Shore to the north and the far prairie horizon to the west, the existing unit had floor to ceiling windows on three sides with closely spaced concrete columns surrounding the exterior.

The design revealed the views by placing service, kitchen and bathroom functions toward the center and leaving the exterior walls unencumbered. To accommodate an owner who wanted to both live in the sky but also feel grounded in Chicago, a visual connection to the landscape was created. A continuous black inlay runs through all the new cabinetry and column surrounds and corresponds to both the client's eye height and the horizon line of the prairie to the west and the lake to the east.

Within this band lies a reflection of the city - a curving wall of cabinetry that hides and exposes the services of bathing, storage, cooking and cleaning.

Designed with David Leary, Katherine Iverson and Jim Walker Builder: Rick Hendricks Photography: Mark Gerwing

Riverwoods renovation and addition

Leaving the entire front of the house unchanged, this project reconceived the spaces of the family's daily living - the kitchen, breakfast room, and family room, for an existing ranch house in Riverwoods, Illinois outside of Chicago.

A new addition was grafted to the back of the house to engage the rear yard on three sides. A new kitchen was inserted a t the point of that addition's connection to the main house, sliding along the back edge of the existing house and mediating between the new and the old.

Designed by Mark Gerwing while Senior Associate at Kathryn Quinn Architects

Mark Gerwing, Project Architect

Builder:  John Teschky