In Stamford, Connecticut, ABA designed the modern custom house transformation of a 1980s builder house into a combined family home and professional photography studio. The project redefines a conventional suburban structure through targeted building interventions—lowering the roofline, enlarging openings, and simplifying the geometry to connect the house more directly to its wooded site. By reorganizing the home around light, movement, and view, the design replaces a generic residence with a series of calibrated volumes that possess the rigorous intentionality of ground-up residential architecture.

The design reshapes the entry sequence into a more generous, continuous procession. A new front addition expands the living room and raises the ceiling, allowing daylight to reach deeper into the plan. The fireplace, once peripheral, now anchors the center of the space, while the kitchen is repositioned at the core of the house adjacent to a dining area enclosed by windows on three sides. Throughout the home, framed views draw the forest landscape inward, effectively dissolving the boundaries between interior and exterior.

Opposite the domestic spaces, a new specialized studio volume houses the client’s photography practice. A mezzanine office floats above the rear of the double-height space, taking advantage of exposed structure and providing precise control over light and vantage points. The studio is designed for maximum flexibility, able to shift from a professional production space to an informal family room.

The surrounding landscape, formerly overdesigned, is reconceived as a loose sequence of terraces defined by low retaining walls, gravel paths, and soft plantings. The result is a home that feels grounded yet open—balancing the precision of a workspace with the ease of domestic life, and revealing how strategic architectural edits can transform a conventional suburban property into something quietly composed and attuned to its place.