Location: Palo Alto, California, USA
Size: 5,000 sf
Year: 2018
Awards 2018
AIA California Council Residential Award of Honor
AIA Silicon Valley Design Award of Merit
AIA|LA Residential Architecture Award of Honor
Chicago Athenaeum American Architecture Award
Rethinking the Future: Global Architecture & Design Award
Architects: Ehrlich Yanai Rhee Chaney Architects
Interiors: Kristy Will Design
Landscape: Blasen Landscape Architecture
Photography: Matthew Millman, Joe Fletcher
The architecture on this residence for a young couple is a study in strong simple composition and materiality with an emphasis on craft. The massing defines solid and void, captures natural light, and connects the indoors with the landscape, seeking to ‘experience the outdoors from within.’The ground floor volumes wrapped in an elongated hand-fired brick, emphasizing the horizontality of the architecture that lays solidly on the land. Bronze-trimmed ceiling planes slide between the brick masses, and floor-to-ceiling glazed openings are captured by thin-profiled bronze frames. In contrast to the grounded brick volumes, the second floor is clad in stainless steel panels and oversized aluminum-framed windows. The lightness and openness of the second floor is nestled among the oak-tree canopies of the site.
A custom-designed element is the steel mesh screen that wraps around to enclose the kitchen for privacy, separating this from the more public “guest hosting” areas adjacent. The steel screen slides along a track embedded into the teak slatted ceiling and disappears into the pantry when retracted.At the basement level, a wine cellar and tasting room open to a sunken landscaped courtyard. A grand stairwell of floating stone steps connects the three levels. A freestanding structure set deep back into the site is a zen-like fitness/yoga studio as well as a guesthouse with a kitchenette”. An exterior trellis connects the main house with the backhouse and studio, and helps frame the backyard and surrounding landscape which integrates California native plant species, grasses and trees to compliment the materiality, geometries and site response of the architecture.
All images courtesy of Ehrlich Yanai Rhee Chaney Architects
Ehrlich Yanai Rhee Chaney Architects
Led by Partners STEVEN EHRLICH, FAIA; TAKASHI YANAI, FAIA; PATRICIA RHEE, AIA; MATHEW CHANEY, AIA; and supported by eight Principals, Associate Principals and Associates, EYRC Architects’ design philosophy starts with a profound respect for a building’s inhabitants. This humanistic approach, referred to as MULTICULTURAL MODERNISM, has permeated the firm’s culture since the beginning, informing every creation and every interaction.
Honored with the AIA NATIONAL FIRM AWARD in 2015, Ehrlich Yanai Rhee Chaney Architects (formerly Ehrlich Architects) is a versatile practice that has earned an international reputation for design excellence and an exemplary professional culture. Founded in 1979 as a tiny residential studio, the Los Angeles-based firm is a 40 member team that has mastered building types ranging in scale from houses to courthouses, including libraries, university centers, corporate and government facilities. EYRC Architects has been recognized with more than 150 awards including nine national AIA awards, and the title of AIA California Council Firm of the Year in 2003. more
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