Open Form Architecture Blog

Ja­mie Re­si­dence. Photo cour­tesy of Escher Gu­ne­War­dena Architecture

Cul­ture in Los Angeles

In the Los An­ge­les me­tro­po­li­tan area, the image and iden­tity of the archi­tec­tu­ral lands­cape is not only as­so­cia­ted with the di­ver­sity of cul­tu­ral in­fluen­ces, but also de­fi­ned by the com­plex, ex­ten­sive free­way net­works that criss-cross the still fast-growing region.

Along with the beaches, palm trees, and mo­vie stu­dios, the free­ways of Southern Ca­li­for­nia –and au­to­mo­bi­les– create the or­ga­ni­za­tio­nal lo­gic of Los An­ge­les. To­gether; they re­pre­sent one of the main tra­de­marks of the me­tro­po­li­tan re­gion. “Vi­si­tors to Los An­ge­les most of­ten re­mem­ber its free­ways, either with ad­mi­ra­tion or dis­gust. The free­ways (rather than in­di­vi­dual buil­dings, or grand ave­nues or pu­blic spa­ces) re­main ine­ra­di­cably as­so­cia­ted with Los An­ge­les. Be­cause the free­ways create the to­tal con­text of Los An­ge­les and be­cause they con­di­tion the per­cep­tion of Los An­ge­les,” ex­plains the his­to­rian Paul Zygas.

His­tory
Du­ring World War II the city of Los An­ge­les nee­ded a new trans­por­ta­tion sys­tem in or­der to ac­com­mo­date a gro­wing po­pu­la­tion. At the time the city had fa­vo­red an up­gra­ded rail tran­sit sys­tem ser­ving its cen­tral city, but soon rea­li­zed the suc­cess of the Arroyo Seco Park­way, built bet­ween Los An­ge­les and Pa­sa­dena in 1940. The highway’s ef­fi­ciency con­vin­ced many that a free­way sys­tem could solve the region’s trans­por­ta­tion problems.

The po­si­tive view of high­ways gra­dually chan­ged, and du­ring the 1970s the Ca­li­for­nia De­part­ment of Trans­por­ta­tion (Cal­trans) had aban­do­ned many plan­ned free­ways in the face of sig­ni­fi­cant po­li­ti­cal op­po­si­tion and a ri­sing enthu­siasm for mass tran­sit. Yet the free­ways con­ti­nued to play an im­por­tant role in Southern California’s trans­por­ta­tion as well as an im­por­tant source of ins­pi­ra­tion for ar­tists, film ma­kers, archi­tects, and others. This fee­ling per­sists to­day, that free­ways are used to re-imagine the image and iden­tity of ci­ties like Los An­ge­les, in spite of the fact that the ma­jo­rity of the region’s in­fras­truc­tu­res have dif­fi­culty kee­ping up with ur­ban growth.

Bill­boards
It is im­por­tant to con­si­der the re­la­tionship of other in­dus­tries that have grown with the high­way boom. Most dra­ma­tic is the ra­pid growth of the bill­board bu­si­ness. Some of the most no­ti­cea­ble and pro­mi­nent bill­boards in Los An­ge­les are pla­ced along the high­ways and free­ways. But to­day, be­cause of en­vi­ron­men­ta­list sen­ti­ments and the dearth of avai­la­ble land within the city, a large num­ber of those bill­boards ap­pear as free-standing struc­tu­res ho­ve­ring over buil­dings and pu­blic spa­ces. More than ever, the bill­boards in­trude into the lands­cape, and have be­gun to in­fluence a whole new group of archi­tects that are ge­ne­ra­ting new ways to ma­ni­pu­late the land, pushing for­ward new de­sign stra­te­gies and buil­ding ty­pes, and ge­ne­ra­ting new op­por­tu­ni­ties in how con­tem­po­rary cons­truc­tion can be de­ve­lo­ped and in­te­gra­ted into 21st cen­tury cities.

Bill­board ho­ve­ring over a bun­ga­low on Ve­nice Blvd. Photo by OFA

7 ele­ven. Photo by Ch­ristpher Plattner

“Pro­saic ma­te­rials, ou­tsi­zed struc­tu­ral forms, and ex­po­sed struc­tu­ral ele­ments are re­fe­ren­tial to the work of Cal­trans and evoke a fee­ling of being in, un­der or around the free­ways them­sel­ves.” Click here to read the rest of this ar­ticle. Photo by Ch­ristpher Plattner

Mo­reo­ver, one might look at the de­sign of fast food out­lets, sto­res and gas sta­tions to un­ders­tand that the car cul­ture con­ti­nues to th­rive and test new mar­ket me­taphors in Los Angeles.

The grant tra­di­tion of the Drive-In Do­nut Hole, 1968. Photo by chrisgreen6719

Dry clea­ner on West­wood; another realm of de­sign, in the be­lief that it would bring in more bu­si­ness. Photo by OFA

“The de­sign of He­lio House, de­sig­ned in co­lla­bo­ra­tion with Johns­ton Mar­klee and Big, em­bra­ces the pa­ra­dox of crea­ting a green gas sta­tion. Con­cei­ved as a ” lear­ning lab”, He­lios House was de­sig­ned to sti­nu­late dia­log, pro­mote edu­ca­ton, and fos­ter dis­cus­sion on the to­pic of en­vi­ron­men­tal ste­wardship,” wri­tes Of­fice dA.

He­lio House. Photo by Of­fice dA

Ja­mes Steel wri­tes that “The car Cul­ture in Los An­ge­les un­ders­core al­most all so­cial ac­ti­vi­ties; the re­gu­lar stop at the gas sta­tion is just one more ri­tual in the re­pe­ti­tive cycle from sur­face street to free­way and back again.

Gas sta­tion in Be­verly Hills. Photo by En­ci­no­Man

The Santa Mo­nica Place shop­ping mall [and its par­king struc­ture] de­sig­ned by the archi­tect Frank Gehry is another great exam­ple that de­mons­tra­tes that the Los An­ge­les buil­ding as bill­board ty­po­logy is alive and well. The mall’s name is spelt out in a large chain link let­ters […] which im­part a frank but mi­ni­ma­list or­na­ment to its road­side façade.

Santa Mo­nica Place. Photo by OFA

The hou­ses in the Holly­wood Hills are bill­boards of another kind, re­pre­sen­ting their owners’s wealth and taste to the world.”

The in­ter­sec­tion of Holly­wood Blvd & Wes­tern Ave in Los An­ge­les, with the Holly­wood Hills off in the dis­tance. Photo by my f_cking photos

Par­king
Mo­reo­ver, as the region’s po­pu­la­tion and de­ve­lop­ments surge, so do the region’s pu­blic in­fras­truc­ture and par­king re­qui­re­ments. The li­mi­ted amount of space now avai­la­ble in­side the city –com­bi­ned with the au­to­mo­bi­les ne­ces­si­ties– be­gins to not only to al­ter the form of every do­mes­tic de­ve­lop­ment in Los An­ge­les, but to si­mul­ta­neously change the his­to­ric cha­rac­ter of neigh­borhoods and their daily li­festy­les, and create cri­ti­cal en­vi­ron­men­tal im­pact on the archi­tec­tu­ral lands­cape of the city. More than ever, the car strongly de­ter­mi­nes how a pro­perty is oc­cu­pied, its form, and con­se­quently how the in­ner space is organized.

“This is the first par­king struc­ture in the country ex­pec­ted to re­ceive the U.S. The six-story, 882-space struc­ture at the Ci­vic Cen­ter fea­tu­res pho­to­vol­taic roof pa­nels, a storm drain wa­ter treat­ment sys­tem, recyc­led cons­truc­tion ma­te­rials and energy ef­fi­cient mecha­ni­cal sys­tems. The struc­ture also fea­tu­res ground-floor re­tail, art works on every floor and swee­ping city and ocean views,” wri­tes Jorge Ca­suso.

Another buil­ding de­sig­ned to sti­nu­late dia­log. Photo by Wendi Marafino

Ja­mie Re­si­dence
The Ja­mie Re­si­dence illus­tra­tes this dis­cer­na­ble shift at the re­si­den­tial scale. Lo­ca­ted in the Pa­sa­dena hills, this house is de­ve­lo­ped like a bridge, as a can­ti­le­ve­red box floa­ting above the hill. The Ja­mie Re­si­dence cha­llen­ges its su­rroun­dings while re­wor­king the con­si­de­ra­tion of the pu­blic and pri­vate do­main. In many ways this cons­truc­tion can be as­so­cia­ted with the boom of the free­ways and the Los An­ge­les buil­ding as bill­board ty­po­logy. Like the bill­boards, the house is highly vi­si­ble itself and of­fers the grea­test vi­si­bi­lity due not only to it size, but also be­cause it allows for a cus­tom crea­ti­vity th­rough its ex­ten­sion from the ground. By floa­ting above the hill, this house is like another kind of bill­board and it am­pli­fies per­cep­tive sen­so­rial experiences.

Ja­mie Re­si­dence. Photo cour­tesy of Escher Gu­ne­War­dena Architecture

Bill­board so­mewhere in Los Angeles

In 2005, the Ja­mie House was se­lec­ted by the ar­tist Ola­fur Elias­son for the show tit­led Meant To Be Li­ved In (To­day I am Fee­ling Pris­ma­tic) to pre­sent the con­text of the Los An­ge­les me­tro­po­li­tan area and the re­la­tionship of the in­di­vi­dual bet­ween the in­side and ou­tside. It is a pre­do­mi­nant as­pect of the so­cial and en­vi­ron­men­tal di­men­sions of daily life in Los An­ge­les. The house was trans­for­med into a pa­vi­lion of light and co­lor which re­la­tes, from a cer­tain point of view, to bill­board de­sign: the idea to re­con­fi­gure both large and small open spa­ces, the ex­pe­ri­ment of light pro­jec­tions and re­flec­tions, the ack­now­ledg­ment of the views, and the game of per­cep­tion in the ur­ban landscape.

The Ja­mie Re­si­dence not only re­vi­sits the clas­si­cal tro­pes of mo­der­nist pri­vate re­si­den­ces of Southern Ca­li­for­nia: shoe box on pi­llars (arcs­pace), but also illus­tra­tes the as­cen­sion of car cul­ture and points up a strong dis­junc­tion bet­ween the tra­di­tio­nal and con­tem­po­rary con­di­tions in the de­sign of re­si­den­tial archi­tec­ture in Los An­ge­les. Af­ter seeing the show, Meant To Be Li­ved In (To­day I am Fee­ling Pris­ma­tic), com­bi­ned with the pre­vious ideas that were run­ning th­rough my mind, I sat down with Frank Escher and Ravi Gu­ne­War­dena of Escher Gu­ne­War­dena Archi­tec­ture in their Sil­ver Lake stu­dio to talk about the mea­ning of image, iden­tity and in­te­gra­tion in the hou­sing de­sign of 21st cen­tury Los Angeles.

In­ter­view

[Ma­xime Mo­reau]
The no­tion of iden­tity seems to be an im­por­tant con­cept in all of your archi­tec­ture. Can you dis­cuss how the ur­ban and archi­tec­tu­ral con­text of Los An­ge­les has in­fluen­ced the image and in­te­gra­tion of the Ja­mie House?

[Frank Escher]
Our work va­ries in­ves­ti­ga­tions in dif­fe­rent realms; some has to do with very or­di­nary is­sues like bud­get and en­gi­nee­ring, while others have to be con­cep­tua­li­zed so as to ad­dress more uni­que is­sues like con­text, site and na­ture. For exam­ple, we con­si­der how to jus­tify the re­si­dence within its con­text and how to build within the boun­da­ries. These no­tions have an enor­mous po­wer as an archi­tec­tu­ral icon. We do not start con­cep­tua­li­zing with a pre­con­cei­ved image of what a house should look like. Ins­tead, we are more in­te­res­ted in a de­sign ap­proach where we need to exa­mine a pro­blem and th­roughout se­ve­ral dis­cus­sions dif­fe­rent con­cepts start to emerge. From there, these ideas are exa­mi­ned as a po­ten­tial for for­mal qua­li­ties to de­ve­lop our architecture.

[Ravi Gu­ne­War­dena]
In the de­sign of the Ja­mie Re­si­dence, we did not plan to create the image at first. As the house evol­ved, it star­ted to take some cha­rac­te­ris­tics that peo­ple as­so­cia­ted with po­wer­ful ima­ges like the case study hou­ses. These peo­ple came to the conc­lu­sion that we were tr­ying to create a dwe­lling ba­sed on si­mi­lar ex­plo­ra­tions, but in fact that was not our in­ten­tion. Du­ring the de­sign pro­gress, there were some en­gi­nee­ring con­cerns that lead the house to take a par­ti­cu­lar form and this form was in­fluen­ced by the same fac­tors that in­for­med the de­ve­lop­ment of mul­ti­ple hou­ses built in the 1960s. From a cer­tain point of view, there are some si­mi­la­ri­ties bet­ween the Ja­mie Re­si­dence and the Case Study Hou­ses. In the end, even if we are not tr­ying to make any re­fe­ren­ces with the­ses hou­ses, there is no es­cape and so­mehow, in our sub­cons­cious, we re­tain the me­mo­ries of these images.

Ja­mie Re­si­dence. Photo cour­tesy of Escher Gu­ne­War­dena Architecture

[FE]
We do not exist in a cul­tu­ral va­cuum; we are su­rroun­ded by what goes on and what has oc­cu­rred. I think that it is un­true to say that one can­not be in­fluen­ced by what hap­pe­ned be­fore. In every pro­ject, we of­ten look for ana­lo­gies to com­pare our ideas against others ex­plo­red in the past. For us, this pro­cess is a way to ve­rify what we are doing and in the end, it might not have anything to do with archi­tec­ture and it can be com­ple­tely un­re­la­ted to the cul­ture of Los Angeles.

[MM]
When you talk about the no­tion of ana­lo­gies, what are you loo­king for? What are you tr­ying to re­pre­sent or suggest?

[FE]
We are very in­te­res­ted in how things are made, how things are put to­gether. This is so­mething that has to do with being Swiss. In Swi­tzer­land there is a very high cul­ture of cons­truc­tion and archi­tec­ture is de­pen­dent upon this cul­ture. The­re­fore, it is im­pos­si­ble to talk about Swiss archi­tec­ture without ta­king about how things are made. In Swi­tzer­land, archi­tects are in a po­si­tion where they can ma­ni­pu­late the cons­truc­tion pro­cess, but in Los An­ge­les the si­tua­tion is dif­fe­rent, at least on the eco­no­mic le­vel. In most of our pro­jects, we get to ma­ni­pu­late a pro­duct and not ne­ces­sa­rily a pro­cess. Within this con­text, we are for­ced to find the most eco­no­mi­cal way of achie­ving an idea. In the de­sign of the Ja­mie House, we ex­pres­sed that in a very straight-forward way, th­rough the tec­to­nics of the buil­ding. This is to say how the house is put to­gether ma­kes this con­cept le­gi­ble as part of the architecture.

[RG]
The two conc­rete piers and two steel beams mi­xed with the wood struc­ture and the skin are all or­ga­ni­zed in or­der to ex­press the dif­fe­rent la­yers, sys­tems and ma­te­rials of the cons­truc­tion. Ins­tead of ma­ni­pu­la­ting these ele­ments to be­come so­mething else or to turn them into a pre­con­cei­ved form, we de­ba­ted a type of ho­nesty. What you see is what is there.

Ja­mie Re­si­dence. Pho­tos cour­tesy of Escher Gu­ne­War­dena Architecture

[MM]
The Ja­mie House sits on a com­plex and cha­llen­ging site. How have the su­rroun­dings af­fec­ted its figure?

[FE]
We be­lieve that archi­tects have the res­pon­si­bi­lity to be ca­re­ful about how they treat the land –even in ex­tre­mely dif­fi­cult si­tua­tions. In this case, we did not want to place the house so that it would deny the site or trans­form it into so­mething com­ple­tely dif­fe­rent. This re­si­dence is lo­ca­ted on a hill site and for us it should re­main a hill site. Con­se­quently, the main idea was to be very de­li­cate with the ground and make the house only lightly touch the hill. This ins­pi­ra­tion was very in­te­res­ting to us not just for eco­no­mi­cal and struc­tu­ral rea­sons, but also be­cause this con­cept allo­wed the hill site to re­main com­ple­tely un­touched. The two piers sup­por­ting the en­tire house oc­cupy only 2% of the pro­perty. Mo­reo­ver, each pier was dri­lled from the street in or­der to mi­ni­mize the dis­tur­bance of the site du­ring the cons­truc­tion process.

Ja­mie Re­si­dence. Photo cour­tesy of Escher Gu­ne­War­dena Architecture

[MM]
How was the house pla­ced on the site?

[FE]
The square foo­tage of the house was com­ple­tely de­ter­mi­ned by the plan­ning code and dic­ta­ted by the lo­ca­tion of the set back; where we can start buil­ding. In ad­di­tion, for eco­no­mi­cal and pro­gram­ma­tic rea­sons, we pla­ced the house as close as pos­si­ble to the street. Further away the dwe­lling gets from the road, the higher the house gets. So, at some point, the height li­mi­ta­tion de­di­ca­ted the lo­ca­tion of the house on the site. On the other hand, once we knew that the sys­tem on top of the steel struc­ture would be a wood cons­truc­tion, the width of the buil­ding was de­ter­mi­ned by the size of the big­gest floor joist that could be trans­por­ted up to the hill. Thus, a lot of those very straight for­ward and mathe­ma­ti­cal the­mes com­bi­ned with our con­si­de­ra­tions for the site, views, wind and the di­rec­tion of the sun star­ted to shape the pa­ra­me­ters and iden­tity of the house.

Ja­mie Re­si­dence. Sec­tion cour­tesy of Escher Gu­ne­War­dena Architecture

[MM]
Would you say that the fact of lif­ting the house above the ground ins­tead of sit­ting it on the site gave you more free­dom to ex­press so­mething dif­fe­rent in the spa­tial or­ga­ni­za­tion of the house?

[FE]
The Ja­mie House is es­sen­tially de­ve­lo­ped like a bridge. Its spa­tial or­ga­ni­za­tion has to do with struc­tu­ral is­sues such as the po­si­tion of the car on the bridge. From there, two ques­tions were rai­sed. First, should the car be pla­ced at one end, which would make the struc­ture un­ba­lan­ced, or should the car be pla­ced bet­ween the two piers and make the cons­truc­tion more sta­ble? These ques­tions be­gan to give us some di­rec­tions on the lo­ca­tion of the au­to­mo­bile in the house. In ad­di­tion, in Los An­ge­les, the car re­pre­sents how peo­ple move th­rough the city and how they get to their house. Within this con­text, it didn’t not make sense for us to de­ve­lop a dwe­lling with a se­pa­rate ga­rage lo­ca­ted so­mewhere at the back of the pro­perty or not sho­wing it, since the ga­rage is where the ma­jo­rity of peo­ple in Southern Ca­li­for­nia en­ter into their house. Con­se­quently, it be­came clear that the ga­rage should be pla­ced in the cen­ter of the house. Struc­tu­rally, this so­lu­tion ma­kes a lot of sense and con­cep­tual the ana­logy of the car is very strong; once peo­ple park their car they arrive at the cen­ter of the re­si­dence. We of­ten com­pare this set-up to other coun­tries where peo­ple leave their shoes next to the front door. Ho­we­ver, the si­tua­tion in Los An­ge­les is that peo­ple leave their car next to the front door. But, the fact of ha­ving the ga­rage in the middle of the house rai­ses other ques­tions, such as how the space should be or­ga­ni­zed around it? With a li­mi­ted square foo­tage, we nee­ded to ac­com­mo­date other parts of the pro­gram. Be­si­des, we are very in­te­res­ted in spa­ces that are non-hierarchical. In this case, the spa­tial or­ga­ni­za­tion of Ja­mie House re­pre­sents this si­tua­tion. The pu­blic spa­ces in­side the house ex­tend, con­ti­nue and con­nect with the va­rious li­ving areas. The house is de­ve­lo­ped around a se­ries of vo­lu­mes that be­come sto­rage con­tai­ners: ga­rage, clo­set, pow­der room and laundry room. The lo­ca­tion of these walls-containers is very im­por­tant, since this is how the in­te­rior spa­ces are or­ga­ni­zed and how the space flows.

Ja­mie Re­si­dence. Plan cour­tesy of Escher Gu­ne­War­dena Architecture

[RW]
Another is­sue is that the house has views all around; it is not just orien­ted to­wards one side. So the ques­tion was how do you main­tain these views? By pla­cing the en­trance and the ga­rage to­ward the cen­ter of the struc­ture it allo­wed the house to have views out from all of the dif­fe­rent rooms.

[MM]
As you said, the car is the cen­ter of daily life in Los An­ge­les and strongly de­fi­nes and con­trols the spa­tial or­der of every house. From there, would you say that the Ja­mie House re­pre­sents another kind of tra­de­mark in the re­gion, in the same way that free­ways do?

[RW]
The car is a sig­ni­fi­cant fac­tor in the way the hou­ses are sha­ped in Los An­ge­les. If you think that every new house de­ve­lo­ped in the city must re­quire two par­king spa­ces per unit, it starts to de­ter­mine how pro­per­ties are oc­cu­pied and con­se­quently their form.

[MM]
What about the pu­blic space? Even if the house is lif­ted above the ground le­vel, it still needs to deal with pu­blic space. So, can you talk about the pro­gres­sion bet­ween the pu­blic and pri­vate do­main, the es­sence and ex­pe­rience of the bridge?

[FE]
We had all sorts of ideas about the bridge and it al­most be­came me­die­val. The bridge per­mits a cer­tain amount of de­tach­ment from the ground that ma­kes ever­yone highly aware of when they ap­proach the house. Once on the bridge, peo­ple are ele­va­ted off the ground, so the act of get­ting to the re­si­dence be­co­mes an act of lea­ving the ground. Also, we didn’t want to hide the fact that the house is floa­ting in the air. In a way, this is what ma­kes the pro­ject in­te­res­ting to us.

There were two as­pects behind the idea of crea­ting this bridge. First, we tal­ked about the house itself being a bridge, be­cause struc­tu­rally it is built like a bridge with two ver­ti­cal piers and ho­ri­zon­tal sup­port. But also, the bridge is the con­si­de­ra­tion of the pu­blic to the pri­vate space, the se­pa­ra­tion from the street. For ins­tance, se­ve­ral hou­ses, de­sig­ned in the 1960’s, in the hills of Holly­wood and Pa­sa­dena sit right next to the street –peo­ple open the front door and they step right into the street and the same thing hap­pens when they pull out with their car and so forth. Thus, the dis­tance bet­ween the road and this house is in­for­med by being able to re­ceive vi­si­tors; to have two par­king spots on the bridge. From there, the length of the au­to­mo­bile de­ter­mi­nes the di­vi­sion bet­ween the pri­vate and pu­blic domains.

Ja­mie Re­si­dence. Photo cour­tesy of Escher Gu­ne­War­dena Architecture

[MM]
As you desc­ri­bed ear­lier, the pro­gram of the house is pla­ced in dif­fe­rent con­tai­ners, but when loo­king at the plan, you see a large open space with no boun­dary bet­ween the pro­grams. The plan al­most reads like a se­ries of fur­ni­ture pie­ces that can move to or­ga­nize flu­xing space. Do you agree with this representation?

[FE]
Yes! This is so­mething that we are very in­te­res­ted in for all of our work; that is to say, how to find the quie­test way to or­der the space and to or­ga­nize the cir­cu­la­tion. The Ja­mie House is plan­ned around sim­ple vo­lu­mes that se­pa­rate the for­mal areas (li­ving area, di­ning area, mas­ter be­droom, mas­ter bath, study and pow­der room) from the in­for­mal (kitchen, fa­mily room, chil­dren be­droom and laundry). The di­vi­sion bet­ween the pu­blic and pri­vate space is ba­sed on the va­lue of the views. The sma­ller spa­ces, like the be­drooms and study are loo­king to­wards the hill while the li­ving, di­ning, kitchen and fa­mily room be­ne­fit from the dra­ma­tic views over the hills and the city beyond.

Ja­mie Re­si­dence. Li­ving room. Pho­tos cour­tesy of Escher Gu­ne­War­dena Architecture

So, the view that each oc­cu­pant has is re­la­ted to the size of its space. The views also in­fluence the way peo­ple en­ter into the house. Ins­tead of gi­ving the views right away af­ter pas­sing th­rough the front door, we force them to en­ter into a very na­rrow co­rri­dor. At the end of that space, peo­ple arrive in a large open space where they ex­pe­rience a uni­que pa­no­rama of the su­rroun­ding lands­cape. It is at this point, in this space (at the end of the lobby) that peo­ple see the whole length of the house (84 feet) from one end to the other; straight th­rough each of the spaces.

Ja­mie Re­si­dence. Din­ning room with lobby, kitchen and fa­mily room be­yond. Photo cour­tesy of Escher Gu­ne­War­dena Architecture

Ja­mie Re­si­dence. Din­ning room with view be­yond. Photo cour­tesy of Escher Gu­ne­War­dena Architecture

Also, by car­ving the ex­te­rior te­rrace in and by pitching the con­nec­tion bet­ween the di­ning and the kitchen we empha­size the se­pa­ra­tion bet­ween the for­mal and in­for­mal spa­ces. This pinch acts as a th­reshold in­side the house. Con­se­quently, mo­ving from the pu­blic to the pri­vate space one really sen­ses the com­pres­sion bet­ween the ga­rage and the ex­te­rior te­rrace even if the spa­tial arran­ge­ment is in rea­lity open.

[RG]
The no­tion of the views also has to do with the cons­truc­tion sys­tem and ma­te­rials. In an early stage, we de­ci­ded that the ex­te­rior si­ding should be de­ve­lo­ped with 4×8 conc­rete pa­nels. From there, we had to fi­gure out a way to use these pa­nels without ha­ving to mo­dify or cut them. Mo­reo­ver, we had to find a way to or­ga­nize the win­dows with the pa­nels in or­der to form a sys­tem that va­lues the views and func­tion with the in­te­rior spa­ces; to find a cer­tain balance.

Ja­mie Re­si­dence. Photo cour­tesy of Escher Gu­ne­War­dena Architecture

[MM]
Fi­nally, would you say that the idea of gi­ving up the con­cept of a con­ven­tio­nal court­yard with trees and grass, gave you the chance to do so­mething dif­fe­rent to en­gage with the landscape?

[RW]
The op­por­tu­nity to build out­door space is an im­por­tant idea in all our pro­jects. There is al­ways an out­door space in each of our pro­jects. So whether it is a court­yard, a bal­cony or a pa­tio, we treat it as another room in the house.

[FE]
The te­rrace is also a hy­brid space. On one hand, it does read like a court built to­ward the sky, but at the same time it is de­ve­lo­ped like another room that en­ters into the house. The bal­cony be­co­mes clearly another room of the house. Thus, it is from this space that one really ex­pe­rien­ces the na­ture. In this case, by ope­ning the façade of the li­ving and di­ning areas from floor to cei­ling, peo­ple start to have a dif­fe­rent ex­pe­rience; the in­te­rior space feels like huge out­door deck. Ho­we­ver, being on the bal­cony is a much more di­rect con­nec­tion with the lands­cape; we can feel the wind, tem­pe­ra­ture and so forth.

Ja­mie Re­si­dence. Ex­te­rior te­rrace de­sig­ned like another room in the house. Photo cour­tesy of Escher Gu­ne­War­dena Archi­tec­ture)