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Residential addition / Interior reorganization / Permit documents
Summit Addition · Summit, New Jersey / 2023
Use the back to repair the whole plan.
A 700-square-foot, two-story rear addition expands a 1,510-square-foot house to a proposed 2,212 square feet—using new area to improve the kitchen, bathrooms, primary suite, and circulation through the existing home.
BLAST portfolio
Designed by Brendan Leadbeater, AIAPractice at time of commission: BLD Design LLC- Existing house
- 1,510 sf
- Rear addition
- 700 sf
- Proposed total
- 2,212 sf
- Documents
- June–July 2023
The brief
The addition begins where the house already reaches into the yard.
The existing two-and-a-half-story house needed more than an isolated room at the rear. The design uses a two-story addition to improve how the old house works from the kitchen through the upper levels.
The proposed footprint follows the area of an existing rear concrete pad and remains within the existing setbacks. New and old floor levels are coordinated so the addition can expand the kitchen and first-floor bathroom, form a primary suite above, and complete the third floor with a bathroom.
Design moves
Change the relationships, not only the area.
- 01
Build where the house already occupies the yard
The addition uses the existing rear concrete-pad footprint, concentrating the work rather than extending farther into the site.
- 02
Align old and new floors
Coordinated floor levels make the two-story addition read as a continuation of the house instead of a separate appendage.
- 03
Let the kitchen become the hinge
The expanded kitchen organizes daily movement and gives the rear of the first floor a clearer center.
- 04
Complete the upper levels
A new primary bedroom, bathroom, and walk-in closet occupy the second floor, while a third-floor bathroom makes the upper story more useful.
Reading the proposal
Seven hundred square feet is used across three levels of daily life.
The addition is compact in footprint but broad in effect: an expanded kitchen and first-floor bathroom below, a primary suite above, and a new bathroom serving the third floor. The value lies in how the new work completes the existing house, not simply in the added square footage.
What this page represents
Design work, with its status stated plainly.
Permit and construction documents were issued in June and revised in July 2023. Construction status beyond those documents has not been verified, so this page does not represent the project as built or complete.
BLAST portfolio — Designed by Brendan Leadbeater, AIA; practice at time of commission: BLD Design LLC