Rather than think of this project for a couple and their two teenage daughters as an addition to their Brooklyn house, the architects conceived a 360-square-foot, two-story garden pavilion added onto the original brownstone (in the back, the house is brick with stucco). Entering the pavilion from the original house’s parlor floor gives the feeling of stepping into a garden in the air. A kitchen and informal social space comprise this level.

The hybrid wood/steel framing members form a lattice-like structure open to the changing seasonal landscape. Large, angled transparent glass planes pivot open, while translucent, sandblasted planes diffuse light. Stairs from the kitchen lead down to an oak-paneled music room where sliding glass walls open out to the garden.