Site size: 60,711 square feet Project size: 5,431 square feet Program: A family house is integrated into the mountain landscape to offer optimal privacy and tranquility. Location: The base of the Northstar California Resort near Lake Tahoe, in the Sierra Nevada Mountains. Solution: The house is conceived in plan as three elongated bars. The largest encompasses the living, dining and kitchen areas, as well as sleeping quarters. A narrow bar of space for services separates the main portion of the house from the third bar'a garage on the northwest side. An insulated concrete wall divides these spaces longitudinally and situates
Architect and developer Jonathan Segal's cast-in-place concrete house for his family in La Jolla, California, brings urbanity to the suburbs. In temperate La Jolla, California, a narrow building lot and a desire for a generous outdoor living area gave rise to the straightforward rectilinear motifs of the 5,300-square-foot Cresta House, a three-story coastal residence designed by San Diego architect Jonathan Segal for himself and his wife, Wendy. “The house wanted to be a pure form on this site,” Segal says. He conceived the cast-in-place concrete structure as an orthogonal volume, slicing and shaping rooms and functional spaces within and around
Site size: 151,584 square feet Project size: 2,720 square feet Program: A new residence connected to a concert space contained within a 1940s barn. Location: Three acres in a hilly and remote section of Beverly Hills, CA. Solution: The architects connected a new house to an existing barn that they repurposed for a recital space. The bedrooms on the second level offer views of the trees and woodland through expansive areas of glazing. Construction and materials: Since the renovated property is situated in a high-fire zone, the use of flame-resistant materials, such as Ipe inside and out, was important. The
For years, Philip Johnson's glass-skinned Crystal Cathedral in Garden Grove, California'completed in 1981 for televangelist Robert Schuller and his Reformed Church in America'operated as a broadcasting venue as well as a house of worship.
A new campus museum quietly serves up a visual banquet. It’s tempting for designers to try to turn art museums into works of art themselves. But what if the client’s directive is just the opposite? A new campus museum in the Bay Area by the New York–based firm Ennead Architects may disappoint those hoping for a bigger architectural statement.
A sympathetic design raises the bar for affordable housing in a not-so-affordable city. Affordable housing in Santa Monica sounds like an oxymoron. In 2013, the city's average monthly rent of $2,328 was the priciest in Los Angeles County. Adding insult to injury are local homeowners who fear that buildings for lower-earning households will be eyesores that drive down property values.
Site size: 19,042 square feet Project size: 7,500 square feet Program: When the clients, Thom and Sarah McElroy, purchased a half-acre wedge-shaped lot overlooking the Pacific Ocean in coastal California, they asked Ehrlich Architects to design a contemporary house for indoor-outdoor living. The clients, who swim or surf daily, wanted panoramic views of the water, sustainable materials requiring little maintenance in the salty air, and a design that adhered to a strict 11-foot height limit set to preserve views throughout the gated community. Solution: The house, a series of rectangular volumes united by a flat roof, is organized around a