Buffalo Spree Magazine

Beyond square footage:
A suburban transformation

By Anthony Chase
photos by Jim Bush

The extension is used for the kitchen and dining areas.

Buffalo architect Mehrdad Hadighi is more interested in “clients” than he is in “projects.”

“I am attracted to clients who are willing to explore,” he explains.

That description certainly fits the couple who hired Hadighi to transform their 1970s-era white vinyl-sided home in a suburban subdivision outside of Rochester into an innovative landmark structure. The relationship that developed between architect and client would eventually result in three separate projects at the same site. But it began simply.

Inside the concrete extension, metal and glass are used extensively.

“They wanted to build an addition onto the back of their house,” says Hadighi. “They liked their neighborhood and they wanted to continue living there. But they wanted more space.”

They came to Hadighi, initially, looking to increase their “square footage.”

“I think most people think of square footage as being the most important element in today’s economy,” says Hadighi. “I wanted to demystify that idea. Space is something but not everything. I see so many huge houses today that have so much wasted space. They are planned so badly. A large percentage of the cost goes into space that can never be used.”

And so, when Hadighi’s clients’ first inclination was to construct a big addition, he saw it as his job to talk to them about their space and how they wanted to use it. After discussing the possibilities, they essentially settled on maintaining the actual footage of the house but transforming the space.

Two layers of tempered and laminated glass provide privacy and safety for the luminous, glass-enclosed bathroom.

“The existing house did not have distinctive or interesting architectural features,” observes Hadighi, “so I started to play a game of oppositions. In a sense, I set out to turn the house upside down and inside out. The temporary nature of the vinyl siding and the stick construction inspired me to go from light to heavy; from light to dark.”

The startling result is a structural rectangle of black concrete that counterbalances the original house in terms of weight, color, structure, and permanence. Monolithic, the concrete structure has no seams or breaks; it is one solid pour. Vinyl is counterbalanced by concrete; 75 tons of frame-construction by 75 tons of concrete; the hip roof of the original house by the flat roof line of the new construction.

“We did not have an extravagant budget, so one of the ways that we tried to be very purposeful with expenses was to reduce excavation and foundation work. We built over existing foundations, one of which belonged to the porch. The monolith cantilevers into the existing house and beyond the foundation. Rather than having the foundation right under the wall, we are intersecting the two foundations.”

Dropped ceilings were removed,
exposing the interior structure.

After the concrete had cured, it was hand-polished. This was a less expensive procedure than one might imagine, as it requires a low level of skill and provides an eye-popping result.

Having established the theme of oppositions on the exterior, they continued the theme inside, and set about reclaiming wasted space. “We opened all the nooks and crannies,” says Hadighi. “We opened the structure and enclosed the space right in the structure.”

To be economical, dropped ceilings had been installed everywhere. These were removed, opening the space up to the structure of the building, a cheap and easy decision, which immediately and radically altered the interior, giving it a distinctive appearance. They took a guest bedroom built into the attic of the old house and made it into a bridge that opens into the living room and dining room. From that vantage point, one can look down.

This phase of the transformation was completed in 2003. Once bitten, the delighted home-owners signed on for a second transformation.

This time they wanted to renovate a bathroom. Hadighi offered two proposals, including the option of a vertical glass tube. Having intersected the original house with a dark concrete form already, this time Hadighi devised a tube of green glass. He predicted it could be done in two weeks. It took a year and half.

The startling result is a structural rectangle of black concrete that counterbalances the original house in terms of weight, color, structure, and permanence. Monolithic, the concrete structure has no seams or breaks; it is one solid pour.

“The only barriers working in glass are to make it private and to make it shatterproof, ” says the architect. Hadighi chooses not to dwell on such obstacles as the concerns of the town’s planning and permits office, none of which had to do with safety, but with aesthetics. This house would not look like anything else in the subdivision. The potential safety obstacle was conquered with two layers of tempered and laminated glass, which provided the needed strength and safety.

“It looks like a simple green glass tube,” says Hadighi.“If the concrete tube is horizontal tube, the green glass tube is a vertical tube cutting down into the house.”

Work on the house is not quite complete with these two projects. The owners have something else in mind, and Hadhighi has, again, been enlisted for the task. With a concrete rectangle and a glass tube already intersecting the once non-descript house, what could be next?

Ah, how simple.

“A tube of steel,” says Hadighi.

Anthony Chase writes on theater for Artvoice and other publications and can be heard on
“Theater Talk” every Friday morning on WBFO.

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