MCALLISTER Residence

Golden Valley, MN 2005

After completing a basement renovation the year prior, our clients asked us back to work with them on a small dining room addition and outdoor patio space. 

The interior goals of the project were to provide a more functional landing space from the garage, and to create a more distinguished dining room that was removed from the main traffic patterns of the house.  

The exterior goals were to define some exterior living spaces. Their back door dispensed people into an expansive back yard that included a garage that functioned as a storage shed, and a play structure for their young children, and so our main moves were to set parameters to the space through decorative block walls, paired with rows of tall grasses on the "wild" side of the yard and a long narrow vegetable garden on the "inside". The dining room addition helped to define different portions of the outdoor living spaces with practical access from the garage (through the mudroom) on the smaller side of the patio, and the prominent outdoor dining space accessible from both the kitchen and the dining room on the more spacious side of the patio. 

The organization of the space, defined by doors and functional uses, is strengthened by strategic openings in the block walls of the patio that draw people out and connect them to the yard beyond.