Balakrishnan Residence Featured in Chapel Hill Magazine
Articles
Balakrishnan Residence Featured in Chapel Hill Magazine
Our Balakrishnan Residence was featured on the cover of the Chapel Hill Magazine Home & Garden edition! Read an excerpt of the article, "Quiet Modernism" below.
This great project is the result of a successful collaboration between the Clients, our team at ThoughtCraft, the general contractor, McLean Building Company, and the photographer Mark Herboth Photography.
Quiet Modernism
For 75 years, Chapel Hill architects have practiced restraint in public and private spaces
By J. Michael Welton
About eight minutes away from downtown Carrboro, Chapel Hill architect Jason Hart has reinterpreted the Carolina dogtrot — a rural typology with a breezeway connecting two living spaces — for his clients, Lisa Balakrishnan and Arvindh Balakrishnan. They share the home with their two children, Ellie Balakrishnan 20 a sophomore at UNC, and Zach Balakrishnan, 18 and a senior at Chapel Hill High School.
“They wanted inside/outside connections,” Jason says about the open space at the home’s center. “That’s what drove the living room with 21-foot doors that slide open and phantom screens that come down to create a screened porch.”
Situated on a 3-acre site, the home, a total of 3,100 square feet with a master on the ground floor and two bedrooms upstairs, was literally a family affair. “During the design process, the kids were involved,” he says. “You don’t always see that — they worked as a family unit, with the parents asking the kids what they thought.”
Its floor-to-ceiling windows permeate the living space, so the final design opens up inside to out. IT also manages to bring the family together in a number of ways. The couple and Ellie like to cook — often simultaneously — so their architect designed a kitchen with wide aisles to accommodate them all at once.
The home’s bedrooms are relatively small, compared to the expansive living/dining/kitchen area, which encourages family interaction in the common space. “The bedrooms are for sleeping,” says Lisa. “We have a big TV downstairs and not in the bedrooms,” adds Arvindh. “It’s great for bringing the family together.”
Responsive to its owners and transparent to the outside world, their home is the latest iteration in Chapel Hill’s long line of modern design.
Continue reading the article: https://chapelhillmagazine.com/april-2021/
Learn more about the home here: thoughtcraftarchitects.com/balakrishnan-residence