The challenge was to design an additional floor extension with as few means as possible. Partly due to a certain degree of DIY this has been successfully achieved.
Most of the neighboring houses in the attractive and cozy district of Delft are extended, but only with a pitched roof at the front and back of the house. As this provides a limited increase of effective interior space, the designed solution here has been to achieve a straight facade at the rear of the property. This has greatly increased the effective space in the home. With the addition of a lot of glass in this north-northwest facing façade the lightness of the house has greatly improved without an excessive increase in internal temperature.
These houses still remain characteristically compact in volume. To incorporate this issue into the design, J1 has designed a very compact staircase that is still comfortable in daily use. The result is a space saving staircase where the runs and risers have been combined to increase the depth of the runs.