How They Pulled It Off: A Transparent Deck Roof That Brightens Up a Moody Renovation

Welcome to How They Pulled It Off, where we take a close look at one particularly challenging aspect of a home design and get the nitty-gritty details about how it became a reality.

The team at Pac Studio had their work cut out for them when renovating a home for a couple in Auckland, New Zealand. The original space was dim and cramped, and the clients were on a tight budget—but Pac Studio found a clever solution to bring the light in. Taking cues from their clients’ collection of rock music photography, the architects also took inspiration from a leather jacket (black, of course), creating a moody and dimensional space. 

The original house was built in the early 1900s, and, at some point around the 1980s, gained an addition that was too small with poor circulation. "It’s a common theme with these old houses. People buy the house knowing there’s a problematic bit they’ll have to resolve," says Pac Studio director Sarosh Mulla. In this case, as well as with other houses in the neighborhood, the extension often clashes with the original scale and materials, and often is far from weatherproof (read: leaky).

The crux of the problem was introducing natural light, volume, and depth to the extension without losing the renovation’s moody palette, or the original character. A pivotal addition that solved for this issue is the covered deck with a transparent roof—perhaps not overtly rock 'n' roll, but effective nonetheless.  

How they pulled it off: A transparent roof that covers an outdoor room

• Sliding glass doors easily connect to the backyard’s new 172-square-foot deck. A corner of the existing home was carefully opened to make space for the deck within the compact site. Envisioned as an outdoor room, it gets year-round use thanks to Auckland’s mild, humid climate and frequent, though often brief, rain showers. "It’s always useful to have an outdoor space that is protected from the rain, but still lets light through, because it can become a little bit gray," says Mulla. "The depth of space is really useful because it’s an extension of the living spaces that you use all year round."  

• The roof is made from polycarbonate sheets over a gauged timber frame—all materials that can be bought at a local hardware store. "We kept it really simple. That’s the other side of it: the project was achieved on a very tight budget," says Mulla. "We tried to get the absolute maximum amenity from simple arrangements of material."

• The roof’s ridge line carries through the original house into the extension, preserving the existing height. At the deck, where a section of the structure was removed, the original roof folds downward to meet the new transparent section, which extends out to shelter the outdoor space.
  

"[The deck and roof] is a great example of what we try for in all of our projects, where the clients interests, personality, and skills influence the final design outcome," says Mulla. "That collaboration between ourselves and the clients is, I think, really successful in this one." 

Project Credits: 

Architect of Record: Pac Studio / @pacstudio

Builder: Sound Structures

Photographer: Sam Hartnett /  @samuel_hartnett

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