It takes a moment to notice the hush. Inside two side-by-side Brooklyn town houses, dated to the 1840s and now revived according to Passive House strategies, you’ll hear no din of ventilation systems, no noise from the streets. But while the atmosphere may be quiet, there is nothing muted about these homes—both outspoken design statements and bold case studies in energy-efficient construction.
Tal Schori and Rustam Mehta, childhood friends and founders of GRT Architects, first stepped foot inside them seven years ago at the behest of brother-sister clients, who purchased the residences as adjoining homes for their respective families. The decades had not been kind to the Greek Revival structures, which had changed hands multiple times, suffering neglect, their ornament stripped. “They were falling apart,” recalls Schori, enticed by the prospect of designing sibling structures for sibling owners. Add to that challenge historic façades subject to rigorous review and an ambitious sustainability mandate—a big job became more complicated still.
Working closely with master builders Mark Ellison and Adam Marelli, GRT restored the imperiled edifices (pouring new foundations, shoring up wood framing) while tailoring the interiors to the contemporary lives of two families. On the outside, that meant returning exterior ornament to its earliest known state, rebuilding shutters, lintels, cornices, clapboard, and more to match a circa 1940 photograph, with clever variations between the two addresses. “Our practice loves engaging with historic architecture,” says Mehta, alluding to past projects such as the conversion of a Harlem rectory. “We wanted to do right by these buildings.”
If the exteriors were constrained to faithful re-creations, the interiors offered vessels for experimentation, with two-story volumes carved out of both homes, rear windows reconfigured or enlarged, and ceiling height added by raising the roof and digging into the basement. “On both sides we wanted to create spaces that felt full of light and air but were also sculpturally complex,” says Schori. All the while European Passive House standards—wherein a tightly sealed building envelope and specialized ventilation system slash the need for heating or cooling—guided the process. To maintain the historic façades, GRT tucked the necessary insulation along the inner walls, which in turn grew to as thick as 17 inches. “We thought of it as a quilted blanket,” says Schori, noting how they embraced this design inevitability by rounding the sills and jambs of the triple-glazed windows. “Softness became a defining feature and a link between both houses.”
