Location: La Crescenta, California (USA)
Client: Lari Pittman and Roy Dowell
Size: 310 m2
Type: Residential, villa
Scope: Concept design through construction documentation
Status: Built 2010

The contemporary indoor-outdoor lifestyle has been a defining character of Southern California’s popular culture and architecture for nearly a century. The site itself is exemplary in this respect, an area originally planned by Richard Neutra for a hilltop subdivision of houses in which only one had been built: the Serulnic House (1952). The design for this courtyard house for two artists continues in this spirit, but adapts to the changing urban context and the desire for greater privacy. Contrasting the transparency of its canonical neighbor, the house is defined by a perimeter wall that turns in onto a courtyard that appears to dissolve into the adjoining living spaces. The connection to views and sunlight are recaptured as carefully framed fragments that blur into the residents’ daily lives.

In association with Michael Maltzan
Photography by Iwan Baan