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" Photo: Erik Johnson VIEW MORE PHOTOS There&amp;#039;s nothing more environmentally friendly than recycling an existing building. That&amp;#039;s what family-minded Washington, D.C., architect Lavinia Fici Pasquina did when she expanded the 1,100- square-foot ranch she shared with her husband, Paul (a.k.a. Colonel Paul F. Pasquina, M.D., chief of the Integrated Department of Orthopedics and Rehabilitation at Walter Reed). Many of the neighbors had demolished modest single-story bungalows that gave the wooded suburban street a cohesive feeling. In their place rose bland two-story houses as large as zoning allowed. &amp;quot;It&amp;#039;s easy to demolish and build new, but where is the challenge in that? How does it respect the history of the place?&amp;quot; asks Pasquina, who was born and raised in Palermo, Sicily (where they&amp;#039;ve been recycling buildings for millennia). Pasquina, now the mother of an infant daughter, was determined not to lose sight\u2014literally\u2014of the original house or encroach on the wooded quarter-acre lot, even as she increased her home&amp;#039;s size to roughly 4,000 square feet. She removed the roof and demolished the attached garage, preserving its foundations as the addition&amp;#039;s footprint. The original 1949 house, its brick exterior patched and repainted a crisp white and its pitched, asphalt-shingled roof removed, became like a museum artifact preserved within the larger, decidedly contemporary addition, which is structurally independent of the bungalow, its steel columns dancing around the original brick walls. (The wing containing bedrooms and a new ground-floor living area sits atop the foundations of the demolished garage.) &amp;quot;The two influence each other,&amp;quot; says Pasquina. &amp;quot;The vintage part and the modern part underscore the beauty of one another.&amp;quot; The walls of the addition are almost entirely translucent: a combination of energy-efficient windows and doors and fiberglass Kalwall panels filled with Nanogel, a high-tech aerogel insulation. The lightas- air, nearly invisible filling transforms the delicate, shoji-screen-like panels into a tough thermal and acoustic barrier. Light is softly and evenly diffused, eliminating the need for shades or curtains. &amp;quot;The walls let in so much natural light that we don&amp;#039;t have to turn on the lights until much later in the evening,&amp;quot; notes Pasquina, thrilled at the prospect of reduced energy use and smaller electric bills. Photo: Erik Johnson The shallow, V-shaped copper roof atop the new construction is an homage to the original home&amp;#039;s pitched profile and will eventually support solar panels. The copper deflects solar heat much better than the original asphalt tiles and bounces light into the house. (Pasquina was also thrilled to learn copper is a natural mosquito deterrent.) The slopes of the V direct rainwater into a central gutter leading to a downspout that terminates in a catch basin. Though Pasquina preserved the exterior of the original house, she left little evidence of its former life inside. She removed the interior walls that divided rooms in the little bungalow to create a loftlike open living-dining-kitchen area that flows smoothly into the new spaces built around it. Custom sliding doors fashioned of translucent polycarbonate panels\u2014which Pasquina designed on the fly and built alongside one of the carpenters on site\u2014screen the living space from a staircase leading up to a new sunroom directly above. When they tore up the original wall-to-wall carpeting, the couple discovered oak floors, which they refinished and stained a dark brown. To distinguish old from new, the floors in the addition are all concrete, with water-fed radiant coils embedded in the slabs to heat the floors in cold weather. &amp;quot;I actually love to sit on the floor and read a book,&amp;quot; says Pasquina. &amp;quot;The radiant heating means they&amp;#039;re nice and warm in winter.&amp;quot; What the Pros Know Concrete walls or floors can be colored with stains designed to bond integrally with the cement. Pasquina used a white Tintura Lithochrome stain from Scofield Products to give the concrete floors of her home a washed-out look. After curing, the water-based, environmentally friendly stain was applied with a sprayer and allowed to dry (two to four hours, as suggested by the manufacturer) and a second coat sprayed on. &amp;quot;You can do as many coats as you like until you like the finish color,&amp;quot; says Pasquina. Stains are typically available in standard as well as custom colors. New concrete floors must be thoroughly washed and dried before staining; existing concrete or insufficiently porous surfaces must typically be ground down, sandblasted or acid-washed for the concrete to absorb the stain properly. After drying, the floors are sealed and can then be waxed. Pasquina applied a single coat of wax to achieve the lightly reflective sheen she wanted. Manufacturers suggest periodic resealing. Photo: Erik Johnson In addition to the open living-dining-kitchen area, there&amp;#039;s a second living space on the ground floor and a guest bedroom; upstairs are two more bedrooms and a sunroom with open-air terraces on either side. Pasquina approached the apportioning of these rooms intuitively. &amp;quot;My house is a collage of different spaces. I carved up the house not according to square feet but by atmosphere,&amp;quot; she says. The sunroom, suggests Pasquina, is designed for after-work martinis. Cocktails are served on a glasstopped table with a base made of salvaged bricks from the chimney of the original house. The new house covers nearly 4,000 square feet, but the spaces aren&amp;#039;t especially large\u2014though so much natural light makes them feel roomier. &amp;quot;The bedrooms are a normal size. I didn&amp;#039;t want a Versaillessize master suite,&amp;quot; says the architect. And the rooms are decidedly spare: The dominant tones and textures come from the industrial materials and finishes: bare concrete walls, waxed concrete floors, exposed ducts, lighting tracks and steel bracing. &amp;quot;I like the industrial look of concrete. The big, solid walls in the bedroom give you a sense of security and strength; it makes you feel good,&amp;quot; says Pasquina. &amp;quot;They also give the texture of Italy,&amp;quot; she adds. The furnishings are minimal\u2014and unmistakably Italian. Much of the furniture arrived with Pasquina when she moved to Washington ten years ago. Other pieces she&amp;#039;s brought back on subsequent trips home, including the vintage red plastic Kartell chairs surrounding the sunroom table. The coffee table in one of the living areas downstairs is partly recycled: A new sheet of Plexiglas sits atop the metal Bo Concept base. Designing one&amp;#039;s own home is difficult for any busy architect. For Pasquina, it was slightly more so: She also acted as general contractor, thinking it the only way to ensure that her family&amp;#039;s thoroughly modern home would be well constructed. The payoff, in many shades of green, has been worth it. &amp;quot;From our bed I can see the trunk of a beautiful tree outside,&amp;quot; says Pasquina. &amp;quot;I can stare out the window for hours and feel like I&amp;#039;m in the middle of nature.&amp;quot; Click here to view the resources for this article. "^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
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