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La Moraleja Villa

Photography by

• Madrid
• Spain
• .

This family residence for an art collector is located on a relatively flat, 2-acre park-like property characterized by hundreds of evenly spaced small oak trees.

The house is organized on the site as a series of open and closed volumes with spaces between that become entry points, transitions and covered outdoor living spaces.

The entry is under a projecting and leads to a glass enclosed 2 story atrium which frame specific art works from the owner's collection. A gallery leads one to the main living/ dining space, indoor-outdoor double height space that opens completely to the pool courtyard and terrace to the South and to views over the park-like ground to the North.

Offices, guest suites and services anchor this grand open space to the East. The family/ media room, kitchen and covered outdoor dining area frame the space to the West, also protecting the living/entertaining areas from the low Western sun.

A generous master suite and family bedrooms comprise the upper floor. A ten car garage, services and staff rooms complete the subterranean basement level.

Skyhouse

Photography by

• Los Angeles
• California
• .

Madisonhouse

Photography by

• La Quinta
• California
• .

The Madisonhouse is located on a West facing knoll overlooking a dramatic mountain range at the eastern end of the Coachella Valley. The area is known for its extreme summer heat and severe winds. During the winter months however the area is paradise - clear, sunny and temperate days, with cooler nights perfect for the indoor outdoor modern lifestyle made famous in photographs by Julius Shulman.

The projecting and sheltering roof planes of the house are designed to relate to the horizontality of the desert floor, connecting the house directly to its natural surroundings. The house is organized around two main concepts: to use the mass and materials of the house to shelter the inhabitants from extreme desert conditions; and conversely, to open the house to the mountain views and clear desert light.

The house is organized as two volumes around a central courtyard, bridged by a series of large cantilevered roof planes on two stories. To the South, the solid mass creates a thermal buffer to the massive solar heat gain. This volume contains the garage, offices and service spaces, culminating in a media room with a covered terrace facing the mountains. To the North, a long rectangular solid mass containing guest bedrooms and two story fireplace block create a windbreak to Northern winds that can reach 100mph.

These closed volumes in the North-South direction are counteracted by layers of transparency in the East-West direction. Deep cantilevered overhangs protect these large openings from the sun and allow them to open completely when weather allows.

Projecting horizontal roof planes rest on two long fieldstone walls that frame, in succession: patterned metal entry pivot doors, a courtyard and reflecting pool, glass entry pivot doors, a large cross-axial living/dining/ open kitchen area, a sixty foot wall of sliding glass panels, a covered outdoor terrace, and outdoor swimming/ entertaining area.

Environmentally, the house is designed with Insulated Concrete Formwork (ICF) walls that create super insulated R60 walls. The thick stone and concrete walls, deep glazing recesses and large cantilevered overhangs shelter the house from the sun.

Concurrently, the house opens in every direction to passively cool the interior spaces. The courtyard reflecting pool also serves as an evaporative cooling system for the ground floor areas opening onto the courtyard. High performance glass, high efficiency mechanical systems and fixtures further reduce the energy profile of the house.

Like the desert climate itself, the house is a study in dualities. Large open and fluid spaces are framed by massive solid and fixed elements. Light white terrazzo floors and countertops and bounded by dark rift oak wood cabinetry. Rough stone walls frame openings of delicate metal and glass doors.

Materials continue from interior to exterior and back again, furthering the connection between inside and outside spaces. From inside the house panoramic views open dramatically from every room, and nature becomes an integral part of the house.

T house

Photography by

• Los Angeles
• California
• .

Sunset Bungalows

Photography by

• Los Angeles
• California
• .

Guggenheim Museum

Photography by

• Helsinki
• Finland
• .

The new Guggenheim Helsinki is composed as a series of interconnected volumes that generate new relations between Tahtitornin vouri park, the boardwalk and the waterfront. Given the very prominent site of the project, the proposal is not only concerned with the building itself, but with creating a network of public spaces along the waterfront. The result is a literal extension of the public space to the water and a park that meanders through and around the museum.

Exterior spaces of the museum create seamless connection between inside and outside. To the East a new Sculpture Bridge will connect the main museum entrance to Tahtitornin vuori park and extend the green belt of the park in and through the museum site.

This Museum park slopes down to the dock level at 2.1m, connecting again to a new timber boardwalk that will link the waterfront to the museum. This will create an engaging, dynamic relationship between the park, the waterfront, the boardwalk and the Guggenheim, while avoiding the perception of the museum as a self-enclosed object on the bay.

The sloped plaza is the extension of the vuori/ mountain park beyond. As one passes beneath the building the landscape continues as a gently undulating hill, extending out to the city and waterfront. Indigenous trees – the same varied species found in the park will extend across the bridge and populate the Museum park.

The building also creates an iconic image from the waterfront, of a glowing white granite roofscape formed by the skylight cones that capture the Nordic light for the galleries below. From the mouth of the bay, entering the harbor, the building will appear like sails, like glowing lanterns against the forests and cityscape of Helsinki.

The massing of the main building is pushed up against the service roads, a relatively thin volume that continues the long blocks of the city and creates the open and accessible public space sheltered between the museum and the waterfront.

Gallery configuration is based on a highly flexible 10mx10m grid, such that galleries can accommodate the requirements of each individual exhibition. Two large gallery spaces anchor the main gallery level at 15.1m; a large gallery project room for special events and educational workshops, located in the Southeast corner; and a triple height gallery located at the North terminus of the building, with a mezzanine overlook from the main gallery level and a full height glass wall facing the City.

The building is conceived as a model of sustainability. The entire roofscape harvests the Nordic sunlight for maximum use in the building, obviating the need for electric lighting loads during the daytime, All offices and service areas will have extensive and operable glazing for natural passive ventilation and cooling. Heating will be integrated into the structural slabs with radiant hydronic systems. Rainwater from the rooftops and Museum Park will be collected and used for gray water purposes in the maintenance of the building.

The West and South elevations of the building have a layered building assembly to create a solar thermal wall – absorbing the sunlight during the day to release into the building for heating during non sunlight hours.

Natural and diffused light enters the galleries from a variety of skylights. The skylight cones are conceived as a multilayered system that captures the low Nordic sunlight and redirects it with custom shaped louvers onto the sloping walls to illuminate the artwork. Light plaster walls and whitewashed wood surfaces add to the light and airy feeling in the galleries.

The interiors are rendered almost entirely in wood, conceived of as an expression of different wood species and fabrication, installation and finishing techniques that Finland is world famous for.

As Helsinki is known as the legendary White City of the North, the exterior of the museum is conceived in local pale granite, fabricated as dimensional tile and installed in a shingle pattern in Nordic tradition. From afar, the building will glow and shimmer a soft white against the green-forested mountain park. As one draws closer, the detail in the stonework will become apparent as a collection of individual elements that comprise the whole.

RF House

Photography by

• Los Angeles
• California
• .

RF House is a single family home located on a large hillside parcel in the Bird Streets of the Hollywood Hills. The small pad and steeply sloping site presented design challenges that were addressed by the massing of the project.

The house is comprised of 3 main components. A core box forms the central living space on the upper floor and open out to an infinity pool overlooking the city of Los Angeles.

Several bedrooms comprise a long bar that extends from the street to cantilever the master suite over the hillside. The final lower floor component includes service functions and secondary bedrooms.

Openhouse

Photography by

• Hollywood Hills
• California
• .

This residence is embedded into a sharply sloping hillside property, a challenging site that led to the creation of a house that is both integrated into nature and open to the city beyond.

The structure and detailing of the house is more complex than it appears. Extensive grading and terraced retaining walls were developed to extend the first floor living level into the hillside and to create a garden terraces on each level.

Steel beams were set perpendicular to and into the hillside to achieve the backspans necessary for the large cantilevers at the front of the building. Lateral steel clear spans fifty feet between these beams to create double cantilevers at the leading edge of the house and uninterrupted cinematic views over the city.

The fireplace is made of dry stacked granite, which continues as a vertical structural element from the living room floor through the second story. The main stair is charcoal concrete cantilevered from a structural steel tube.

Service and secondary spaces are clad in floor to ceiling rift oak panels with flush concealed doors. Several interior walls are dark stucco, an exterior material that wraps into the house.

Set in a visible hillside area above the city, the residence appears as a strong sculptural form developed at the scale of the large site. The logic of the architecture is developed directly from these site conditions: the building follows the site contours, the interior spaces extend to embrace nature and nature extends into and throughout the house.

The use of cut pebble flooring throughout the house, decks and terraces continues the indoor-outdoor materiality, which is amplified when the glass walls slide away. The building finishes are few in number but applied in a multiplicity of ways throughout the project, furthering the experience of continuous spaces from interior to exterior.

PCH Beach House

Photography by

• Santa Monica
• California
• .

PCH Beach House is a single family residence located on the beach between the cliffs of Santa Monica and the Pacific Ocean.

The design strategy was to break the program into three separate elements that are then stacked vertically and offset horizontally to achieve privacy from the PCH and enhance the uninterrupted views of the ocean from Malibu to Palos Verdes.

WO Residence

Photography by

• Los Angeles
• California
• .

Designed with strong consideration of the steep site, the project was conceptualized as a series of terraces that conform to and accentuate the natural contours of the site.

The cantilevered terraces, realized as thin stepping planes, coupled with large walls of glass that slide away, frame panoramic views from the Los Angeles Basin to the Pacific Ocean. The boundaries between indoor and outdoor are obscured, taking full advantage of the temperate climate that Los Angeles provides.

From the street a single long curving wall ascends from the earth to form a suspended volume, hovering over the street, creating a clearly defined entry.

The design was intended to capture and balance the inherent contrasts afforded by the site.

Arts District Lofts

Photography by

• Los Angeles
• California
• .

The Arts District Lofts is a community oriented mixed use project located on an important corner parcel at Mateo and Palmetto Avenues in the burgeoning Arts District.

Currently the properties contain a series of underused warehouses and a tow yard. The site is bounded to the North by the thriving residential Barker and Molino Loft buildings, and to the East by new coffee shops and restaurants along Mateo Avenue.

The building is developed as an exposed concrete load bearing wall structure with a modular bay size, such that slip forms can be utilized to minimize the formwork and expedite the construction schedule. The other materials are glass, steel plate and some repurposed industrial oak detailing in the deck and on the stairs.

The design intention with this project is to draw these neighborhood qualities in and through the new series of offset buildings and courtyards.

The street level along both Palmetto and Mateo is conceived as a porous series of retail and restaurant spaces, with openings between to courtyards and access to work/live creative offices and studios.

The main urban street axis to the North is extended through the project, creating the primary North-South courtyard. Connections to the West are created with what will be a repurposed brick arched building into a farmers/ Chelsea market type use. Connections to the coffee shops and restaurants along Mateo are created with large solid/void openings between the retail volumes.

The residential program on the floors above the retail and conceived as a mix of large and small units, grouped into smaller modules of 4-8 unit volumes that are offset from one another, reducing the scale of the building from the street, and relating closely to the surrounding building heights.

The openness between the volumes also creates terraces, circulation/ gathering spaces and floating gardens for the residents to use. The residential gathering spaces include the rooftop deck/ pool area as well, with views toward the Downtown LA skyline.

Surfhouse

Photography by

• Hermosa Beach
• California
• .

The Surfhouse appears as an abstract block of ebonized cedar a few blocks from the Pacific Ocean in Hermosa Beach. The site is very small. While typical lots in the area measure 120' x 40', the allowable building area for the Surfhouse measures just 33' x 24'.

The facade is made from rough sawn, black stained cedar planks with volumetric openings at primary program spaces and a system of identical vertical casement windows arrayed across the secondary elevations for specific views and ventilation. The interior is all light and air, with bamboo floors and walls of glass that slide away to bring the beachside environment inside.

Alta House

Photography by

• Los Angeles
• CA
• .

The configuration of the house grew directly from these site features. The mass of the building follows the street, benching into the hillside to create a 2-story structure that is partially embedded into the hillside, minimizing the foundations required into bedrock. A curving masonry wall holds the street edge of the site, creating privacy from the passing cars. The house both engages with and pulls away from this site wall, creating a series of differentiated indoor and exterior spaces for gardens, an entry court, daylight and cross ventilation.

A structural system of piers and volumes anchor the free-flowing spaces between inside and outside. The walls shift in plan, at times engaging the edge of the building and at times receding to the glass line. The circulation, layout the structure of the house is orthogonal, but the asymmetrical configuration of the planes and columes framing diagonal views and a dynamic relationship between the house and the surrounding landscape.

Once inside the house, sliding glass walls open in every direction creating a sense of transparency and lightness. Natural daylight and air flow freely through the house, obviating need for air conditioning or daytime lighting. Rooftop photovoltaic panels, cisterns, gray water recycling, and high efficiency systems further minimize the energy footprint of the house.

Four Concrete Houses

Photography by

• Los Angeles
• CA
• .

This project is located on 2 parcels in the flats of Los Angeles. The zoning allows for greater density than is typical on these size lots, creating the opportunity to create 2 small houses on each of the 2 parcels. The architectural challenge was how to provide privacy, openness, gardens, generous living space and the required parking and services within the small buildable envelope dictated by the lot sizes and zoning setbacks.

The buildings are staggered on the site in order to create privacy and maximize outdoor garden spaces for each house. A shared driveway doubles as the main entrances to each house, creating an alleé garden space, with grass pavers, whitewashed garden walls and planters lining the lane.

Each house is entered through their garden, with a generous ground floor indoor-outdoor living space linking the house and garden.

The plan of each house is configured to be open in one direction for garden and views, and closed in the other for privacy.

The main stair and circulation space frames double height windows, skylights and openings in the floor plates that create a ribbon of multi-story space and light linking the interior spaces.

For economic and ecological reasons, the buildings are conceived in structural “shotcrete” with fly ash content. The interior is finished in cement plaster over rigid insulation, creating a simple and unified construction assembly for the buildings

Downtown LA Hotel

Photography by

• Los Angeles
• California
• .

This new small hotel is conceived as a monolithic concrete structure, carved by a system of slots and slices that bring light, air and views deep into the building.

The site is an infill parcel in downtown Los Angeles which measures just 50x150 feet. The hotel is freestanding, surrounded on all sides by alleys and streets. This allows for slots to be cut into the façade, which contrast with and dematerialize the otherwise monolithic quality of the building.

The rooms and other program elements are conceived as solid volumes which float freely within the structural frame provided by the overall concrete monolith.

The glass enclosure line is set variably 5 to 20 feet back from the concrete perimeter to comply with fire codes. The double height slots multiply the facades and provide natural light, fresh air, views to the city, terraces, areas for plantings and art installations.

From the interior, the building is light, airy, with views from everywhere through the building to landscaping, other people, other parts of the building. The strategy cuts holes in the otherwise solid fabric of the building, exposing one use to another, creating moments of juxtaposition and unanticipated multi-story views through the building.

Openings in the concrete shell frame panoramic vistas South and West over the downtown Los Angeles.

Nakahouse

Photography by

• Hollywood Hills
• California
• .

Nakahouse is an abstract remodel of a 1960's hillside house located on a West facing ridge in the Hollywood Hills, just below the Hollywood sign. To the South and West are canyon views; to the East is a protected natural ravine, with a view of Griffith Park Observatory in the distance.

The existing home was built as a series of terraced volumes on the downslope property. There was little relationship to the site, the interiors were closed to the views and were cut off from one another.

Due to geotechnical, zoning, budget and ecological considerations the foundations and building footprint were maintained in the current design. The interior was completely reconfigured however, and the exterior was opened up to the hillside views and the natural beauty of the surroundings.

An extreme cantilevered terrace was added to link the kitchen/ dining area with the living room, with a steel stair leading to a rooftop sundeck. Terraces were also added to the bedroom wing and the upper master bedroom suite to extend the interior spaces through floor to ceiling glass sliding panels that open and completely disappear into adjacent walls.

A series of abstract indoor-outdoor spaces with framed views to nature are rendered in white lacquered cabinetry, white concrete epoxy floors, white plaster and white steel. One room pours into another, eliminating clear division or division between spaces, and providing the illusion of weightlessness.

The series of interconnected terraced spaces connect the rooms to each other and to the outdoors, lending further to the concept of an 'uncontained' space, with no rigid beginnings or ends. Air moves freely through a circuit created by the new design - the home doesn't need or have air conditioning.

Environmentally, the house is designed to be passively cooled, with sliding glass panels that open in the North, East and West directions and take advantage of prevailing hillside breezes. Operable clerestory windows at the second floor create a thermal chimney to extract warm air from the residence, and a high performance Sarnofil roofing system minimizes heat gain from the roof.

Strategies of structural reinforcement were developed to re-use the existing foundations and framing, which eliminated the need for additional foundations and grading. High efficiency fixtures and appliances, recycled content in the concrete floors and interior furnishings, and drought resistant landscaping also add to the overall energy profile of the house.

The contrast between the interior and exterior of the house is intentional and total. While the interiors are light and fluid, the exterior walls are finished in a black, monolithic Meoded venetian plaster system. These deep black plaster walls act as a net, holding the home in place, while still allowing it to move in interesting directions.

The black exteriors add definition to an interior that tries to escape it. Although the footprint is still small, it is now rivaled by giant views through the floor to ceiling glass-sliding panels. Exteriors open up the breathtaking hillside, taking advantage of surroundings once disregarded by the original home.

Brentwood Residence

Photography by

• Brentwood
• California
• .

The ground floor of the main house is developed as a garden villa, with four separate pavilions distributed across the flat area of the site. The negative space formed by the disposition of these volumes becomes a free flowing indoor - outdoor living area that opens to gardens in every direction.

A process model shows the lower level terrace spaces and extra guest suites below the infinity edge pool.

A view of the approach and carport of the design process model displays the pure, monolithic mass of the building.

Generous proportions, skylights and floor to ceiling glass windows in the upper level elevator lobby and foyer areas allow ample natural light to fill the private spaces.

Stadtarchiv Luzern

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• Luzern
• Switzerland
• .

The Luzern Stadtarchive is conceived as a marker in the landscape. In its organization and architectural expression the building is closely related to the site topography and adjacent mountains. It is the first building one sees from the street upon reaching this plateau above the city of Luzern.

Due to the complexity of the site access and orientation, the building addresses each elevation as a primary facade, with one large opening per elevation in the otherwise solid concrete body of the building. The East elevation is dominated by large panorama window the full width of the library volume.

The South elevation is the result of a smaller volume, similarly expressed with a large horizontal window to daylight the administrative spaces. The West elevation frames the entry plaza and foyer. The North elevation is oriented around a large clerestory glass wall to daylight the interior of the reading room.

The building is organized around the main magasin/ storage rooms of the Archiv, which arranged parallel to Ruopigenstrasse with four magasins on each of two levels. By locating the magasins below grade the majority of the site is maintained as landscape. The soil from the necessary excavation is used to landscape the plaza, the rooftops, and to berm against the archive, resulting in excellent energy efficiency, climate control and security for the archive documents.

Future growth of the archive is accommodated in a straightforward manner by extending magasin modules to the North based on the evolving requirements of the Stadtarchiv.

The structural bays and spacing of the magasins establish the structural bays for the Library, Reading Room and Office spaces located on the main level. Each of these spaces is oriented on the site according to their specific requirements, with a single circulation core at the center of the articulated pinwheel plan.

The public enters the library via a covered roof and large foyer with adjacent services. The library is transparent in the direction of travel from the entrance, with a roof that slopes gently upwards toward a wide window overlooking Luzern that provides ample natural daylight to the space.

The Reading Room is conceived as a cloistered space with the only light entering through a single large opening near the top of the 10m high volume. The base of this volume is formed by extending the magasin walls from below. The top of the volume is rotated to provide natural, balanced Northern daylight for the delicate documents being studied.

The Stadtarchiv is a white concrete building, formed in 50cm lifts, with a sandy cement mix rammed into the formwork to achieve joint lines that are slightly irregular. The concrete walls register the accumulation of the concrete pours with the same naturalness that sedimentation is rendered in geological cross sections. The intention is that the material and the volumetric forms of the building will create a resonance between the Stadtarchive and that greater natural landscape.

Silverspur

Photography by

• Palos Verdes
• California
• .

Silverspur is a 30,000 square foot renovation to a modernist office building located on the Palos Verdes peninsula in Southern California. On the interior small offices were removed to create large, open loft spaces and sustainable design elements were integrated. On the exterior a new facade was developed to both increase the energy efficiency of the building and create a transformative new building image.

Muscat Villa

Photography by

• Muscat
• Oman
• .

This new 65,000sf hotel is conceived as a monolithic concrete structure, carved by a system of slots and openings that brings light, air and views deep into the building.

One enters the compound through the a gate in the North site wall, crossing a reflecting pool and tranquil shade garden before ascending a few steps to the front door. The walls of this exterior entry court are stacked stone quarried from the local mountains, which carry through into the entry foyer.

The main floor is oriented along a North-South axis, with walls of stone and full height mahogany paneling. From the entry foyer and central gallery, one sees diagonal views to the gardens through the living spaces, gardens at the end of the gallery, an interior garden in the central courtyard/ circulation space, and patterned daylight from a large skylight over the double height stairway space.

All the main living, dining and family spaces are oriented along the Western edge of the building, framing and opening to a generous garden area and views. Large cantilevered roofs protect the floor to ceiling glass doors, which slide open and disappear into adjacent walls. These roofs also shelter exterior seating and dining areas as extensions of the interior spaces.

In contrast to the openness of the main floor, the upstairs bedroom floor is quite private and closed. The glass walls are set deep within the building, with exterior patterned screens for privacy and sun protection. There is a private living room upstairs and several bedroom/ bath suites for family.

Bel Air Residence

Photography by

• Bel Air
• California
• .

The Bel Air Residence is sited on a four acre hillside site with a variety of natural characteristics that directly influence the development of the project.

The site is steep - 150 vertical feet from the entry point at the top to the lowest point of the property. The upper site is a promontory, with views over Beverly Hills.

The lower site is lush and wooded, framed by ravines to the East and West with a network of nature trails that lend it a park like atmosphere.

The architectural concept follows the existing hillside topography, creating a series of terraced spaces that trace the natural contours of the hillside.

The approach both minimized the excavations, allowing for a net zero grading condition, and maximized the opportunities to open the interior spaces to the beautiful natural setting.

The upper, private quarters are expressed as a carved sculptural object. The lower story is cut into the hillside and rendered in solid stone walls.

Between these two bands of program is the main living/ entertaining level which is largely transparent, with walls of that slide away and open onto a generous terrace overlooking the pool area.

The living room, galleries, library and office are located to the East of this main floor, the latter in contained volumes set within the overall building.

Diamondhouse

Photography by

• Santa Monica
• California
• .

The Diamond house is a music studio extension to a house located deep in a canyon, set against a severely sloping hillside, with minimal access and little space upon which to build. Direct sunlight reaches the site for only a few hours a day.

The building material system was developed to relate the new extension to the natural landscape and also to reduce the visual scale of the building. The facade pattern was created from natural elements taken from the canyon site; abstracted, scaled and arrayed across the building in laser cut fiber cement panels.

The panels impart a delicate quality to the otherwise hard edged and programmatically driven geometry of the building. Daylight brings out the etched lines and patterned edges of the cement panels, which in direct sunlight appear as thin as a ceramic vase.

Sapphire Gallery

Photography by

• Encino
• California
• .

This residential addition is designed to display a private art collection, while also providing domestic spaces with views to the surrounding hills and creating a compelling new focal point for the approach and entry to the property.

To create the space for the new extension an existing garage was demolished. The new structure was developed as an extension of the circulation spine of the existing house, and lifted off the ground to create secondary spaces below and around the structure.

The new extension frames an open ground plane that now connects the back gardens to the main entry courtyard. This new hardscape/landscape area is used by the family as a sports/play area for their children, for art parties and for video projections.

A structural system of lightweight braced frames was developed to achieve the double cantilevers at each end of the trapezoidal building. The single story trusses are composed of welded tube steel sections that were factory built and assembled by crane on site in one working day.

An array of photovoltaic cells on the South facing sloped roof produces an average of 15kWh per day, enough to supply all the energy for the new building with a surplus directed towards the main house.