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Inspiring Double-Height Living Spaces
Lofty Rooms Bring Light and Connection to a Home's Design
One of my favorite American architecture practices, W.G. Clark and Charles Menefee, produced very few built works together before they parted ways in 1999. Rooted in their Carolina context, the houses they designed share a number of features, but one stands out in particular: double-height living spaces. In each case the living room became the heart of the compact plan, connected visually to the adjacent spaces on both levels and full of light from generous glazing.
Inspired by these tall spaces found in Clark and Menefee's designs, I browzzed houzz to find other examples of double-height living spaces in a similar contemporary vein. Collected here are ones that exhibit some of those characteristics: connections, lightness, and the contemporary.
Inspired by these tall spaces found in Clark and Menefee's designs, I browzzed houzz to find other examples of double-height living spaces in a similar contemporary vein. Collected here are ones that exhibit some of those characteristics: connections, lightness, and the contemporary.
For this house in Austin, Texas, local architects Webber + Studio started with a simple box and ended up with an L-shaped plan that creates an intimate outdoor space. In the process of this evolution, they created a double-height void at the front of the house, a striking first impression. This space is also related to the rest of the house, as the stairs peeking out actually lead to a bridge with bedrooms and a study in the long leg of the "L."
This house in Malibu, California includes a large living room that fits with the size and scale of the house (at about 8,000 square feet). Also an L-shaped plan like the previous photo, the space here is illuminated by glass on both sides; an elevated walkway traverses the space. Note what appear to be roller shades at the top of the windows on the right; sunshading like this definitely requires a motor and remote control.
Another Malibu residence by Kanner Architects includes a double-height living space, similar to the previous photo with its fireplace and upper-floor walkway. Here the two glass exposures are on perpendicular walls, opening up the corner visually.
Here is another double-height living space with glazing on opposite sides, though here the glass swings or slides open to make the space semi-outdoor. A third glazed side of the large room faces a small terrace and an outdoor fireplace. What is clear in this space more than others collected here is the structure needed for this volume: both the round columns on the left and the concrete shear walls on the right.
This house in Sonoma, California is the first of two designs by Cooper Joseph Studio presented here that utilize double-height living spaces. Amazingly this house is a renovation and reconfiguration of an unexceptional house that featured a wraparound deck. This last piece is maintained but redesigned, overlooking the living area as well as the landscape. A wood lattice above the deck helps to shade this open interior from sunlight.
Looking at the concrete wall in the Sonoma guest house, it's apparent that the double-height living space is a means for dealing with the site's change in elevation. In this view, the tall space is surprisingly intimate, a great setting for looking at the horizon out the window.
The second house by Cooper Joseph Studio, also near Sonoma, is a split-level guest house. The spaces are oriented around a concrete wall, left, with an intimate seating nook carved from it. This nook may be at odds with the scale of the space, but it seems to work well, and it expresses the depth of this important concrete wall.
If connection to the second floor is one characteristic of double-height living rooms, this house in the suburbs north of Chicago makes that connection explicit. Like a residential panopticon, the den "provides for a quite workspace but remains visually and psychologically connected to the rest of the house's activities," according to architects at Searl Lamaster Howe.
...on two sides! Not only is the living room literally opened to the outdoors, a terrace on one side becomes an extension of the inside. The tall space allows these doors to go up without having to turn into the space as is typical with garage doors — a potential conflict with two doors at a corner.
The first of two houses by Australian architect Ian Moore presented here, the Dodds House features a double-height living area overlooked by a bedroom mezzanine. Sliding glass walls extend the space outdoors. Even though the context is suburban, the design recalls Le Corbusier's Unite d'Habitation, a slab of apartments with double-height living rooms in every one.
In these photos the tall volume of the living area seems to exist to call attention to the formal simplicity of the design. Its white walls recall a museum. All the owner needs now are large-scale paintings to complete the allusion.
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More:
Stunning, Surprising Corner Windows
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Browse more home design photos