![]() A guest suite sits somewhat separately in an eastern wing that can be closed off. From here, there is an entrance to the main house’s open-plan ground floor, with living spaces, a discreet kitchen and an outdoor dining area and swimming pool. A pathway around this volume leads down and into an open-air ‘plaza’, the heart of the composition. ![]() The owners’ motorcycle fabrication workshop is also located here. The broken geometry gives a casual, informal feeling.’ĭriving into the plot, a courtyard leads to a garage, its door clad in dichroic glass that changes colour through the day. This happens in plan but also in section, with the master bedroom volume tilted up a bit, giving more room to the space below. ‘We tried to enhance movement through the house, so it’s about spaces of motion and flow. ‘The floorplan is very kinked and faceted, not much is parallel or perpendicular,’ says Burnham. The house has almost no conventionally shaped rooms at all. ‘There’s room to experiment. The green shade came from the client’s preferences, but also out of the tree canopy– albeit ours is very much an artificial green.’ ‘There’s an exuberance to LA architecture,’ says Burnham. The site is enveloped by a sculpted concrete wall, but this bright, cantilevered upper volume makes the house hard to miss. Soon, a curious, green volume started peeking out from the foliage. The architects made the slope safe and landscape designer Matthew Brown refortified the site with native species. The clients snapped up the plot and with it the chance to build from scratch in the Hills, to create a contemporary answer to those modernist classics. The steep slope, while offering striking views, was almost unbuildable.Ĭalled upon to help, architect Douglas Burnham, principal of Berkeley-based Envelope Architecture + Design, was unfazed. Their search led them to an unlikely plot in the Hollywood Hills, ragged, empty and neighbouring a nature reserve. This is what a couple – an interior designer and an entrepreneur – had in mind when they began hunting for a family home. The slopes of Los Angeles’ hilly suburbs are home of some of the world’s finest modernist residences – think Pierre Koenig’s Case Study House No 22, and John Lautner’s Chemosphere House.
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