HO ME & G A RDEN
connecting two living spaces – for his clients, Lisa Balakrishnan and Arvindh Balakrishnan. They share the home with their two children, Ellie Balakrishnan, 20 and a sophomore at UNC, and Zach Balakrishnan, 18 and a senior at Chapel Hill High School. “They wanted inside/outside connections,” Jason says about the open space at the home’s center. “That’s what drove the living room with 21-foot doors that slide open and phantom screens that come down to create a screened porch.” Situated on a 3-acre site, the home, a total of 3,100 square feet with a master on the ground floor and two bedrooms upstairs, was literally a family affair. “During the design process, the kids were involved,” he says. “You don’t always see that – they worked as a family unit, with the parents asking the kids what they thought.” Its floor-to-ceiling windows permeate the living space, so the final design opens up inside to out. It also manages to bring the family together in a number of ways. The couple and Ellie like to cook – often simultaneously – so their architect designed a kitchen with wide aisles to accommodate them all at once. The home’s bedrooms are relatively small, compared to the expansive living/ dining/kitchen area, which encourages family interaction in the common space. “The bedrooms are for sleeping,” says Lisa. “We have a big TV downstairs and not in the bedrooms,” adds Arvindh. “It’s great for bringing the family together.” Responsive to its owners and transparent to the outside world, their home is the latest iteration in Chapel Hill’s long line of modern design. CHM
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chapelhillmagazine.com
April 2021
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RealEstateExperts.net The author writes about architecture, art and design for national and international publications. His work has appeared in The New York Times, The Washington Post, Metropolis and Dwell magazines. He is the author of “Drawing from Practice: Architects and the Meaning of Freehand,” and editor and publisher of a digital design magazine at architects andartisans.com.