Naomi Darling Architecture

Kernan Photography Studio

Branford, CT

2010 - 2014

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Project Team:

Naomi Darling - Principal  

Edward Stanley Engineers LLC - Engineer

Green Homes LLC - Builders

Darrell Petit LLC - Granite Piers

Sean Kernan - Photography

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The Kernan Photography Studio is a studio and darkroom addition to an existing 1750 historic house.  Sean Kernan, the client for this project, is a photographer who suggested a “tweaked New England Barn,” and a “magic space.”  

 

The site is a corner property on a busy secondary road and a residential street with an operating granite quarry at the end of the road. To the rear of the house, the site is a rocky granite ledge.  The studio addition creates a new “front” façade to the house with a new entry threshold providing a place of transition between the domestic home and office studio.

 

The design takes the geometry of the American Beech nut as the inspiration for the roof geometry that tweaks a hip roof and serves to orient the studio to the landscape.  The north-east corner of the studio is a window corner that can be opened to the property with a wrap-around deck to mediate the interior and exterior spaces.  The open interior incorporates a long storage cabinet and work surface along the west elevation and the darkroom itself is designed with all walls accommodating storage.  Natural light enters the studio from all four sides changing the character of the space over the course of a day and a year.  The studio touches lightly and hovers over the existing granite ledge, resting on concrete and granite piers pinned to the ledge.