Big Space, Little Space is the adaptive re-use of a clay tile garage built in the 1920’s into a dwelling and workshop, tucked away in the middle of a residential block in Buffalo, New York.

Instead of designing fresh, new spaces and interventions, existing forms/spaces are reinterpreted. An existing, partitioned area within the garage space that was recently used by a general contractor as an office was retained. This “Little Space” was reinterpreted as the overlap between two bigger, existing spaces: the fenced garden and the garage/workshop. The “Little Space” can be read as part of both, – it can extend into both. The reading of the plan flickers between these different configurations.

Big Space, Little Space offers spaces that are in flux, where inhabitation can retreat into the insulated "Little Space" in winter, and can spread into the “Big Spaces” – the generous garden, workshop, and roof deck in warmer seasons. The living area varies therefore between 43m2 to 480m2. There is no stationary plan. The spaces are rather offerings for temporary and informal uses.

The building is seen here as an animate thing with a lively past and an unknown future, where the intervention is just one of many. The space was not ‘remodeled’ to eliminate its messy past, but rather added to in a similar way to participants in the surrealist game, the Exquisite Corpse.