Housing continues to confound the American dream: Costs are rising, new homes are getting smaller, and families are shrinking. Yet little by little, many communities are realizing the benefits of coliving as a way to share costs and resources. In Providence, Rhode Island, Pršić & Pršić, a multidisciplinary design office led by partners Almin Pršić and Cara Liberatore, recently completed the renovation of an older Victorian-style mansion into a space for two families.
The house had seen many haphazard interventions, including partitions that transformed the single-family structure into three unique apartments, becoming a “nonconforming” three-family building in a single-family district. The client wished to preserve the multifamily arrangement while organizing the ruckus.
Each family participated creatively in their own way. “There was an interesting informality because there were multiple voices in the conversation,” Liberatore said. “It wasn’t a process where we drew something and then they looked at it and said yes or no. It was very organic.” Pršić and Liberatore worked frequently on-site, where they peeled back layers and took notice of the quirks and misalignments of a settled house, like 2-inch level changes between rooms and flooring that zigzagged around the ghosts of partitions past.
The mazelike home required a new plan that would produce two units, a shared playroom and common area, and a guest space. The architects began by rebuilding the porch and demolishing the bulky staircase, replacing it with a half-turn steel stair.
“The stair itself is like a single fin that essentially runs top to bottom. It’s constructed like a truss,” explained Pršić. The offset treads “appear to float in space,” he continued. And minimizing the stair’s footprint also freed up space in the first-floor kitchen, which the designers reclaimed for a built-in refrigerator dining space.
“[The client] was really keen on work[ing] with wood,” Pršić said. So the architects settled on clear-coated plywood millwork, which adorns the first-floor walls, cabinetry, and a breakfast nook bench. “The bench was a big deal to the client because it provided a fairly big communal space,” he continued. The cabinetmaker used plywood slats to create undulating seating that includes built-in storage.
Color quickly became a prominent feature: Pink was selected as the first-floor theme, but finding the right shade wasn’t easy—the many samples considered are now pavers in the backyard. The subtle red in the original cherry flooring, coupled with an otherwise neutral material palette, made the warm, deep pink an ideal choice.
Upstairs, the landing opens to another kitchen. Unlike the streamlined first-floor unit, the second floor—occupied by a textile artist, a drummer, and their child—is more eclectic. The soapstone sink was acquired by the artist while visiting a slate manufacturing company in Maine; two light fixtures found in an abandoned home on Cape Cod hang from above. In order to draw natural light in, the architects “layered” two windows: one new puncture on the building’s exterior into the stairwell brings light through the interior kitchen window. A two-paneled glass door to the kitchen, with one side frosted, creates an extra, optional layer of privacy. Because the guest room also occupies the second floor, the family has access to an attic studio workspace.
The success in Pršić & Pršić’s coliving arrangement lies in small details. But the architects noted that collaboration and open negotiation also played a huge role. “When we’re dealing with people living together, we’re talking about social structures and privacy. It’s an exploration of different things that have existed before, in different contexts, and drawing on that to figure out what actually works for people.”