Residential Architecture

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Some years ago, San Francisco architect John Maniscalco came across one of those opportunities that demand a certain stamina: an aging two-story house was available for a relative bargain price but required lengthy negotiations with the city’s historic-preservation board in order to overhaul.

Urban dwellings can feel highly compartmentalized, composed of segregated levels.

The flat, overhanging roof of the new house echoes the horizontal composition of the original modernist house, meant to evoke the vast Los Angeles horizon.

In conceiving this house’s shape, silhouette, and material palette, the architects took cues from familiar forms seen around the neighborhood, like garden sheds and small garages. 

With this modern rammed-earth house, the architect’s aim was to ignite the community’s interest in a sustainable building typology characteristic of the region. 

When music executive Joe Galante retired from his post as chairman of Sony Music Nashville in 2010, he and his wife, Phran, were ready to shed their frenetic, high-profile lifestyle.

“I am interested in the idea of an ‘essential architecture’ in the tropics,” says Panama City–based architect Patrick Dillon, who was born to American parents and raised in the Canal Zone.

Originally built in 1939, this flat-roofed Art Moderne house with a curved, speed-striped stucco wall, nautical-inspired detailing including a porthole window, and a prominent front door was purchased in 2013 by new owners who wanted to restore it and increase square footage while remaining respectful of the designated heritage building’s past.