Program: The new construction includes four floors of biology and chemistry research facilities, two floors of biology and chemistry teaching labs, a below‐grade nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) spectroscopy lab, and a 175‐seat auditorium.
An aging Spanish bungalow, nestled on a street in Silver Lake lined with 1920s-era homes, has undergone a major remodel. Working with a limited budget, the original structure has been reused and dramatically renovated, resulting in a contemporary light and breeze filled home. The original footprint and building envelope were maintained, keeping it consistent in scale with the surrounding homes on the street.
Sited on a site slightly under an acre in the heart of the Pacific Palisades area of Los Angeles, the site for this estate residence descends over thirty feet from top to bottom. Narrow at the street and widening toward the rear, the building was designed to appear as a very private single story structure from the street and expand as the house moves into the site. At just under 14,000 sq. ft. the house was conceived of as a California Modernist Estate the building utilizes the site slope and widening to create a wing typology each reaching into the site to capture garden spaces, set up views and account for service amenities.
The design of this home arose out of a series of site challenges and constraints. The one-acre property and existing home sat within a protected area of the Santa Monica Mountains. New restrictions on development made it unfeasible to add anything outside the existing building footprint. The existing home had little architectural value: it was dark inside, and it had no contextual relationship to the site. Working within the existing footprint and rooflines, the design is a dramatic transformation from a generic tract house to a custom home that is responsive to its context and is a hybrid of modern ideals paired with conventional volumes.
The clients of The Sanctuary, recent empty-nesters planning ahead to retirement, hoped to downsize and simplify in the design of their new Palo Alto home. When the clients purchased the property, an old wooden fence across the front yard and original house closed off the site from the street. Behind this rough and aged presentation however was an urban refuge of lush vegetation throughout the deep lot. This sense of discovery served as the original inspiration for the design of the house and directed both architect and client to its culmination.
Situated on a sloping hillside with ocean views in a typical residential neighborhood, this project was an extensive renovation of an uninspired house that failed to take advantage of the obvious assets of the property: the views. Although no square footage was added, the interior spaces were completely reorganized, taking down interior walls and reorienting living spaces to open up to the incredible views of the Pacific Ocean. Living, dining, study and kitchen were combined into one common space that is framed by a 9’6” high and 40’ wide opening that pockets away completely, revealing uninterrupted views of the ocean. The master bedroom was also redesigned as a single set of flowing spaces. Bedroom, bath and closet have no doors separating them and of course are open to the ocean view. The simple material palette of concrete floors, stucco exterior, Rhinezink panels and walnut cabinets was another strategy to keep the architecture focused on the site and place.
Originally built in the 1960s, the challenge for this project was how to update a mid-century modern house without sacrificing its charm. Situated on a 1.3-acre site perched on a plateau above Coachella Valley, the rugged, inhospitable Santa Rosa Mountains rise immediately from the back yard; bighorn sheep can often be seen wandering on the rocks above. The 6,357-square-foot house sits roughly in the middle of the property; entry is off the driveway and through a private courtyard.
The client’s goals were to create an open and light filled home that maximized views of the Coachella Valley below and the Santa Rosa mountains to the south and west. They also wanted to create a fluid connection between the primary indoor rooms and the outdoor terraces both for entertaining and for casual outdoor living with their young children.
Composed of three pavilions connected by a series of glass hallways, the single-story residence seeks to create a residential oasis in the heart of Los Angeles. The Western Red Cedar lined guest house/garage pavilion establishes a datum line that carves and connects the two larger volumes of the living and sleeping pavilions, comprised of oversized charcoal-colored board, batten extira and cement board siding. A deep overhang mitigates solar heat gain and shields from the sun exposure.
A walkway of concrete pavers, lined by wild grasses leads to the front door, passing a tranquil courtyard with olive trees. The entry to the house is located within a glass hallway connecting the living pavilion to the west and the sleeping pavilion to the east, establishing a sense of intimate scale before engaging with the other parts of the house.
This project was developed on a flag shaped hillside lot in the Bel Air neighborhood of Los Angeles. The orientation of the site is within a canyon where the sun rises from above a steep hill behind the flat building pad. The favorable views from this lot are on the opposite side of the suns path, looking downhill towards the neighborhood canyon. The design challenge was to orient the building towards the view, while allowing sunlight to illuminate the core of the building from the opposite direction. In addition, the local municipality has an overlay zoning regulation which limits the use of skylights and prohibits single level flat roofs, requiring an additional secondary flat roof which must cover at least 30% of the total roof area.
Article source: Modern Granny Flat with Ramiro Losada-Amor and Prismatica
San Diego Garage Conversion is an integrated garage remodel of a large capacity garage where a couple wanted to live with a lot of flexibility. The space is configured depending on the needs of each moment. For this, several tools were built: mobile panels divide the bedroom into two spaces; a bed integrated into a bookcase converts the living room into a guest bedroom; a mobile island allows different configurations of the kitchen. To make all this possible, the center of the space houses the bathroom, the plumbing part of the kitchen and part of the storage areas. So, the rest of the space is open and configured with ease.
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