CROWN HEIGHTS ROW HOUSE

When we found this Crown Heights row house, its collapsing floors were unrentable. (So the seller was using it as a dog kennel.) But even before its decline, it suffered from common row house ailments: dark in the middle and spatially flat.

We solved both problems by carving out the center of the house. The resulting void is a double-height dining room. Daylight pours down from from a long slot of a skylight. Its shape collects winter sunshine while shading out summer heat gain.

As a compositional foil to the void, a two-story pylon wrapped in copper serves multiple functions. It’s a coat closet, an alcove shoe bench, a storage cabinet, and a privacy screen for the foyer.

We arrayed the rooms on both floors around the sunny dining room, with a catwalk above connecting the bedrooms. To diffuse the daylight, one bedroom wall is just open shelving. The other, corrugated polycarbonate.