An artist had a home and he had a studio and he had a yard between the two. He wanted to connect them but a long hallway was not the way to go here. He wanted a gallery, a show space, an entertaining space. The property was on a hill above the Tookany Creek, the house was old and cozy with several roof lines and the studio and garage had their own roof lines that were not square to the house. So there were several challenges in developing the project; how to join roofs of different heights and angles from one another, how to provide interior wall space to hang and distance to view the art, and how to get natural light to relieve the volume of that space. Windows take up wall space, and the property set back prohibited building footings too close to the property line. The solution to both of those problems was to extend a cantilevered floor from the foundation (no more than 2 ½’ to 3’) to within a lawn mowers distance of the property line with windows on either side of that extension. The width of that extension was all wall with windows perpendicular on each side and more wall space on either side of that for smaller work. Then tall narrow windows allowed more wall space on several other walls. That left the southerly facing side of the addition facing the garage wing of the studio and a segment of the driveway, which, while not a lovely view, allowed light and primary access to the home. We wanted to scoop as much sunlight into the space despite the one story garage so we built a clearstory above the row of glass doors that made up the bottom of that wall. This added a vertical counterpoint to the broad expanse of the room. It also added to the effect I wanted to the rooflines – that of a village in southern Europe. See more photos here.