XTEN Architecture
Post By:Kitticoon Poopong
Photo © Courtesy of Art Gray
The Openhouse is embedded into a narrow and sharply sloping property in the Hollywood Hills, a challenging site that led to the creation of a house that is both integrated into the landscape and open to the city below. Retaining walls are configured to extend the first floor living level into the hillside and to create a garden terrace for the second level. Steel beams set into the retaining walls perpendicular to the hillside are cantilevered off structural shear walls at the front of the site.
Photo © Courtesy of Art Gray Lateral steel clear spans fifty feet between these beams creating a double cantilever at the leading edge of the house and allowing for uninterrupted views over Los Angeles. Front, side and rear elevations of the house slide open to erase all boundaries between indoors and out and connect the spaces to gardens on both levels.
Photo © Courtesy of Art Gray
Photo © Courtesy of Art Gray
Glass in the form of fixed clear plate panels, mirror plate walls and light gray mirror glass panels lend lightness to the interior spaces. These glass walls are visually counterweighted by sculptural, solid elements in the house. The fireplace is made of dry stacked granite, which continues as a vertical structural element from the living room floor through the second story. The main stair is charcoal concrete cantilevered from a structural steel tube. Service and secondary spaces are clad in floor to ceiling rift oak panels with flush concealed doors. Several interior walls are dark stucco, an exterior material that wraps inside the space. The use of cut pebble flooring throughout the house, decks and terraces continues the indoor-outdoor materiality, which is amplified when the glass walls slide away. The building finishes are few in number but applied in a multiplicity of ways throughout the project, furthering the experience of continuous open spaces from interior to exterior.
Photo © Courtesy of Art Gray
Photo © Courtesy of Art Gray
Set in a visible hillside area above Sunset Boulevard, the Openhouse appears as a simple folded line with recessed glass planes, a strong sculptural form at the scale of the site. The minimalist logic of the architecture is transformed by direct and indirect connections to the buildings’ immediate environment. The perimeter landscaping is either indigenous or a drought-resistant xeriscape. An outdoor dining area implements artificial turf composed partly of recycled rubber. With the glass walls completely open the house becomes a platform defined by an abstract roof plane, a palette of natural materials, the hillside and the views.
Photo © Courtesy of Art Gray
Photo © Courtesy of Art Gray
Photo © Courtesy of Art Gray
Photo © Courtesy of Art Gray
Photo © Courtesy of Art Gray
Photo © Courtesy of Art Gray
Photo © Courtesy of Art Gray
Photo © Courtesy of Art Gray
Photo © Courtesy of Art Gray
Photo © Courtesy of Art Gray
Photo © Courtesy of Art Gray
Photo © Courtesy of Art Gray
Photo © Courtesy of Art Gray
first floor plan--drawing Courtesy of XTEN Architecture
second floor plan--drawing Courtesy of XTEN Architecture
sections 01--drawing Courtesy of XTEN Architecture
section 02--drawing Courtesy of XTEN Architecture
section 03--drawing Courtesy of XTEN Architecture
Site Development sequence--drawing Courtesy of XTEN Architecture
Environmental design--drawing Courtesy of XTEN Architecture
perspective--drawing Courtesy of XTEN ArchitectureThe people
Architects: XTEN Architecture
Location: Hollywood Hills, California, United States
Principals: Monika Haefelfinger & Austin Kelly, AIA
Client: Randolph Duke
Contractor: Peddicord Construction
Interior Area: 418 sqm
Total Area: 697 sqm
Project Year: 2007
Photographs: Art Gray Photography
Openhouse Awards
AIA Next/LA Design Award | 2007
Bienal Miami+Beach Architecture Award | 2007
Architectural Digest USA | December 2007 | cover
AD Mexico Mexico | February 2008
Desinart Spain | April 2008
Peruarki Peru | April 2008
Interni Russia | April 2008
Traco Portugal | April 2008
Elle Decor UK Britain | May 2008
Interni & Decor South Korea | May 2008
Mezzanine Russia | May 2008
Residence Sweden | May 2008
Belle Australia | June-July 2008 | cover
Inside Out Spain | July 2008
Architektur & Wohen Germany | August 2008
House Design Source Spain | 2008
Architecture Highlights China | 2008
via:e-architect/archdialy
