Architecture renovation · 2023

A triple-decker that lets the light down

A renovation that cuts a stair void through the middle of the house, pulls daylight from a new roof light down two floors, and turns the rear porches into rooms you can use in February.

Client: Private residence, Providence
By: Atelier Wren
Timeline: 18 months, design through construction
Year: 2023

A line perspective of a stair void lit from a roof light above two floors — Fig. 01 / 05The stair void under the new roof light.

The problem

A 1910 triple-decker had three dark, identical floors. The owners wanted to live on two of them and rent the third without anyone losing daylight.

My role

Project architect, a three-person practice

Constraints

Zoning kept the footprint and height exactly as they were.
The rental unit had to stay legal and separate, with its own egress.
The owners lived in the top unit for most of construction.

Decision 01

Measured the light before drawing anything

Logged daylight levels in every room across one winter week.

Why

The middle of each floor got almost nothing. That told us where to cut, and where not to bother.

Before and after floor plans of the second floor with the new void — Fig. 02 / 05Second floor plans, before and after.

Decision 02

Cut one void, not three skylights

A single open stair void through the owners' two floors under a 2.4 meter roof light.

Why

Three small skylights would have lit three rooms. One void lights the core of both floors and connects them.

A building section showing daylight passing down through the void — Fig. 03 / 05Section through the void, with the winter sun angle.

Decision 03

Enclosed the porches as winter rooms

The stacked rear porches became insulated sunrooms with operable glass.

Why

They were the brightest square footage in the house and unusable five months a year.

A material board of white oak, lime plaster, black steel, and terrazzo — Fig. 04 / 05The material palette: oak, lime plaster, blackened steel, terrazzo.

An axonometric drawing of the enclosed rear porch sunrooms — Fig. 05 / 05The stacked porches, enclosed as winter rooms.

The outcome

Completed in October 2023. The owners measured midday light in the second floor hall at about four times the winter levels we logged before construction.

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An illustrative case study. Atelier Wren and Private residence, Providence are fictional, and so are the numbers, which stand in for figures a real designer would supply. Casepanorama never invents them.