Design practice A/L Studio has built a wooden volume to house the kitchen and bedroom inside this  historic civic building in Pawtucket, Rhode Island.

The renovation is the latest update to the property called Ward House, which was built in 1886 as a meeting hall and was used for several different civic uses, such as a polling place and school. It was turned into a home in the 1980s.

A/L Studio designed the home for Lindy McDonough and Conor MacKean, who wanted to have plenty of space for guests, and their dog Tux. "The design responds to the new clients' love to entertain and cook for guests and family," studio founder Anastasia Laurenzi explained.

The tall, angled ceilings of the historic structure allows plenty of natural light into the main space, which is filled with several furniture pieces and design objects from the Rhode Island creative community. An open-plan living and dining room takes up most of the ground floor, while the kitchen is further back, in the centre of the space. It is contained within a newly built volume made of light-hued wood and open to the entertaining space.

"The new intervention is a consideration of rooms nested within each other, on their own, leaving the existing structure to be from its own time," said Laurenzi.
Above it, a lofted sleeping space overlooks the living and dining room, with enough room for a built-in bookcase and an armchair.

McDonough is a co-founder of Lotuff leather, and is also active within th...