Designed by Ibsen Nelsen in 1961, the layout of this home was very well considered but the character and flow between spaces wasn’t a good fit for the daily patterns of the new owners. High on the owner’s wish list were increased physical and visual connections between rooms and to the outdoors. A central feature of the original design was a courtyard garden, experienced primarily through the living room. Careful reconsideration of the openings surrounding this space reframed it as a tranquil organizing element of the house, central not just to the living room but also to the entry, the daily circulation paths and the more informal spaces of the home. Single pane windows were replaced and extended floor to ceiling. Upgraded insulation and high efficiency radiant floor heat allowed the removal of ductwork and low ceilings, dramatically reducing the home’s energy consumption. The new project is updated and more livable but still respectful of the best elements of the original design.
All images courtesy of mw|works architecture + design
mw|works architecture + design
Formed in 2007, by Steve Mongillo and Eric Walter, mwworks is a Seattle based design studio offering architectural and interior design services to residential and commercial clients. more
CONTACT
mw|works architecture + design
159 western avenue west
suite 484
seattle, washington 98119
Located on broad sweeping ranch lands overlooking a lake, Gambel Oaks Ranch was designed to blend into its surroundings and is not visible from any public roadways.
Following natural contours, a low-profile roof nestles the predominately one-story home into the scrub oak canopy.
Entrance to the site is choreographed to slowly reveal the residence in a series of glimpses through the trees, culminating in an arrival court that constrains panoramic views. From inside the home, views build from interior spaces to distant sights: pool terrace, pasture, far-off lake, mountain peaks.
In June 2015, the Gambel Oaks Ranch residence was awarded LEED for Homes Gold by the USGBC for its innovative use of horizontal loop field GSHP, PV, HWS, and radiant heating/cooling slab thermal control technologies.
Stone was used in layers reflective of the local geology: one color matched to the distant mountains, the other caged in gabion baskets from site rock excavated for building foundations.
Private areas within three distinct Corten boxes are organized as a family compound to contain the master suite, guest suite, and garage. Public gathering spaces defined by the Corten forms flow effortlessly outdoors for entertaining.
Light was a primary issue with this renovation of an industrial loft space in Lower Manhattan. We maintained much of the open “workshop floor” character of the space, while creating a bright and comfortable kitchen, entry hall, and bedroom adjacent to the large living and dining areas. A simple palette of bone-white ash wood paneling and white plaster walls carry the light from the perimeter windows deep into the space.
The detailing of the space complemented the original industrial nature of the building and reflected the owner’s love of mid-century modern furniture and art. Vertical battens line the entry hall and conceal hidden doors to a powder room and a laundry room. The original vaulted concrete ceiling and a steel-clad fire door were maintained and highlighted. A new fireplace has built-in wood storage, as well as niches for art. The home feels comfortable and livable, while remaining true to its history.
Scott is the founding principal at Specht Architects with over 25 years of experience designing and managing institutional, commercial, and residential projects. Before founding Specht Architects (formerly known as Specht Harpman), he worked as a senior designer for Daniel Libeskind Architect and collaborated with that office on its winning New York World Trade Center master planning proposal. He also worked for several years with Kohn Pedersen Fox and Associates Architects in New York, and was the Designer on a number of tall building projects around the world, including the Chifley Square project in Sydney, Australia, and the Niaga Bank headquarters in Jakarta, Indonesia. He is a licensed architect in Texas and New York, is NCARB certified, and is a member of the American Institute of Architects.
Scott received his Master of Architecture degree from Yale University, where he received the George Nelson Scholarship and the Franklin W. Gregory Scholarship.
In addition to his work with Specht Architects, Scott was a featured speaker at TEDx, and his independent design work has been exhibited in two SoHo gallery shows. His design work has also been publicly featured at a Yale University exhibition, the Van Alen Institute, the Municipal Art Society of New York, and the Lower Manhattan Cultural Council. learn more
Team: Ben Mountford, Mark Petley, Carlson Jean Charles, Sarah Henneveld
Photography: Stephen Nicholls Photography and Jody Darcy
The home was commissioned by a florist and an engineer. Sited near bushland on a broad expanse of the Swan River Basin, the design transplants the functional geometry of the European farm quadrangle to the new house while still enjoying its West Australian bush setting. The fourth side of the quadrangle, traditionally a building housing farm machinery, has been replaced instead by a row-planted picking garden designed for the owner by landscape architect Realm Studios.
The house comprises of strong forms hewn from the local limestone. Inside, the inhabitants will enjoy long sight lines and views framed around the 300+ year old paper bark trees. The interior spaces are set up to reflect the play of light and shadow and abstractions of the West Australian bush as the sun’s arc projects them across interior walls.
This home has been thoughtfully designed to provide well considered, well appointed shelter to accommodate the owners’ rural lifestyle.
The brief was for a primary residence for a couple without children with provision for occasionally used guest accommodation for friends visiting from overseas.
The site as presented was a steep slope with magnificent sea and coastal views to the east into which a building platform had already been cut, with its associated timber pile retaining wall.
Our primary response was to separate the building into two components, a lower level accommodating the permanently used portion of the house and an upper level for the guest accommodation.
We stretched the living functions and main bedroom along the contour of the land projecting forward and leaving the previously cut platform open to set up the primary outdoor area which is sheltered from the prevailing katabatic winds and orientated to North and west for afternoon and evening sun.
The view face is articulated as a continuous window seat which crops the landscape view and facilities a view down to the coast below.
The upper level of guest accommodation is set at right angles to the lower pavilion and sets up a third edge to the courtyard as well as articulating a covered entrance sequence.
Lance & Nicola Herbst met whilst studying architecture at the University of Cape Town. After graduating they worked partly together and partly independently on projects in South Africa and immigrated to New Zealand in 1998 and established Herbst Architects in 2000.
One of the couples first projects was their own bach, on Great Barrier Island, for which the received the New Zealand Institute of Architects Award in 2002. The Island is now home to eight of their houses – all off the grid – each designed to have minimal impact on the environment.
There is a dramatic and winding approach up through the landscape that keeps the compound hidden until the last moment. The site strategy is one of slow revelation and discovery of the house and- ultimately- the view. The road, which had to be built for access, brings the visitor to a point below the house- where a formal stair leads up to the entry sequence. The front door frames and reveals views of the Santa Barbara coastline through the courtyard.
A 40’ wide horizontal ‘panavison’-esque opening gives the house a pavilion-like atmosphere. The dwelling is organized around three courtyards, the primary one at the heart of the house also serves as the front entrance and outdoor living room. The courtyards have a dual purpose: they bring in ample natural light and ventilation but also provide protection from the strong winds that can race across the mountain.
A pool house that is nestled into the hill has a custom solar shade structure whose digitally created pattern is designed to maximize shade as the sun reaches its high points.
Bestor Architecture is based in Los Angeles and was founded by Barbara Bestor, FAIA in 1995. Bestor Architecture has designed a number of award-winning projects including headquarters for Beats by Dre and Nasty Gal, Blackbirds, a groundbreaking new typology for dense housing in Echo Park, and a variety of experimental residences and commercial establishments. The varied, creative, and aesthetically progressive body of work expands the territory of architecture into atmospheric urbanism.
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Bestor Architecture
2030 Hyperion Ave
Los Angeles, CA 90027
A tight lot in San Francisco’s Pacific Heights neighborhood seems an unlikely setting for a home replete with gardens. Rather than a conventional yard, Jensen Architects sculpted a weave of shifting volumes and open spaces. At every turn, living spaces blend with dramatic views and intimate courtyards and terraces. Family life flows effortlessly inside and outside throughout the day, “like walking in the clouds,” they say.
Movement through the house reveals a thoughtful narrative of the space, materials, and people that weave through it. Simply walking through the house creates a new relationship to the city topography and bay views beyond. The stairs are treated as sculptural elements emphasizing the fluidity between the levels and the views revealed at each landing. A glass elevator allows you to experience this change as you ascend vertically through the house. The steel-frame of the elevator is painted International Orange, the same color specification as the Golden Gate Bridge. This echo of the iconic structure seen in the distance serves to deepen the house’s ties to its spectacular location.
In many ways the design involved solving a three-dimensional puzzle, a push and pull between height limits, open space requirements, neighbor considerations, and the family’s desire for openness and views. Jensen threaded open spaces throughout the house and shifted living spaces to maintain light and views for neighbors. Carefully placed cut-outs over the pool and courtyard open up vertical views through the house. All outdoor levels are connected as well, with exterior staircases from the rooftop garden to the street.
Jensen balanced the vocabulary of transparency and interconnectedness with the realistic considerations of privacy and solar heat gain. The shifting volumes create south facing overhangs for shading, and each glass wall has curtains or pocketing shades. Floor-to-ceiling aluminum louvers obscure side views to and from neighboring homes, while allowing for light and direct views. Excavation into the hillside created private living areas on the lowest level and the entry hallway spaces can be partitioned at will with sliding solid pocket doors.
As the founder of Jensen Architects, Mark Jensen cultivated his view of the art and science of architecture into an award-winning design practice based in San Francisco. These values came naturally to Mark, who grew up among artisans and designers, and deepened through his academic and early experience in the United States and Italy. After earning a Bachelor of Architecture at California Polytechnic State University, San Luis Obispo, a program recognized for its emphasis on building science, he worked with renowned architects Superstudio, Jim Jennings and Mark Mack, as well as noted fashion designer Enrico Coveri. An active member of the San Francisco Bay Area arts and design community, Mark is a former chair of the California College of the Arts (CCA) Interior Architecture Department and the Headlands Center for the Arts Board of Trustees. He is a licensed architect in California. Mark was elevated to The College of Fellows of the American Institute of Architects in 2018.
Founded in 2001 by Architect and Principal Darren Petrucci, Architecture – Infrastructure – Research, Inc. is an architecture and urban design firm focused on translating advanced research methods and sustainable practices into elegant design solutions that respond to each client’s particular needs and desires. The firm sees the complex contemporary environmental context of each site as an opportunity for investigation and unique solutions. Trained as both an architect and urban designer at Harvard University’s Graduate School of Design, Darren is a Professor in The Design School at Arizona State University, and a Senior Sustainability Scientist in the Global institute of Sustainability, as well as an affiliate faculty in The School of the Future of Innovation in Society. This unique background and expertise in architecture, urban design, the science of sustainability, technology, and materials informs the design practice of A-I-R, Inc. producing cutting-edge, intelligent, and beautiful designs for its clients. A-I-R, Inc. seeks intelligent and enlightened forward-thinking clients who are interested in a collaborative environment that focuses on design solutions that engage individual sites, specific client programs, and environmental conditions.
The more we looked at the space, the more we knew we had to put the focus on that amazing backdrop of Bondi Beach. Gazing out to the ocean from Pacific’s enormous terraces is so dramatic, it blows your mind.
For us, context is very important. We wanted to draw that natural inspiration inside, juxtaposing the energy and texture of the beach environment – the breeze, the air, the smell of the sea salt – with the refinement and luxury embodied within these oceanfront homes. We sought to capture that natural luxury and represent it in physical form.
Living here is a beautiful experience. Everything you touch within the space is beautiful. The mood is soft, calming and always easy on the eye.
Koichi Takada has brought a Japanese sensibility to Australian architecture. His work is innovative and refined. Koichi melds the traditions of his homeland with today’s stunning flowing forms – an approach he developed in New York, London and Tokyo.
Koichi Takada has won international competitions in Australia and Japan as well as several key architectural and interior design awards. The firm’s projects are well recognized and have been extensively featured in Australian and international design magazines.
Koichi Takada studied and graduated from the School of Architecture at the City University of New York and the Architectural Association, London. Koichi studied his thesis work under Alejandro Zaera-Polo and Farshid Moussavi with Rem Koolhaas as a visiting critic.
While practicing at Atsushi Kitagawara Architects in Tokyo, Koichi worked on an invited competition of the Museum of Contemporary Art, Sydney in 1997 and stayed in Sydney thereafter. Koichi has been associate director at PTW and worked on award winning luxury apartments in Sydney, and a diverse range of architectural projects in Japan, China, and the Middle-East.
Koichi established his own practice, Koichi Takada Architects in Sydney in 2008. The practice is now growing with competition winning architectural projects and a focus on the construction phase, with key multi-residential projects in Australia and key landmark projects overseas.
The central focus of the design on this Calabasas home was to accentuate the outstanding views of the canyon beyond. In contrast to the rolling green hills, the home is structured with clean lines and hard angles. Its geometric configuration is composed of a series of connected folding roof and wall planes. At points, the folded walls lift up to reveal poured concrete walls that enclose much of the first floor spaces. Wood paneling and orange stucco are layered amongst glass windows and doors to add warmth to the exterior palette.
When first envisioning the home, the ATA design team was inspired by the homeowner’s profession – a commercial photographer. For this reason, they designed an architectural car port that frames the view of the mountains, an ideal setting for a car advertisement. Since its completion, the home has hosted commercial photo shoots for Lexus, Saab, Toyota and Chevy. It was also used as the set for the second season of Jonas L.A. as well as in Katy Perry’s music video for her hit single “The One That Got Away”.
The compound consists of the main house building and the garage and guest room building, which are separated by a courtyard. The open plan features living spaces with a high ceiling and clear story windows that allow soft filtered light to enter every room. Sliding glass pocket doors fully open to unify these exterior and interior spaces, thus expanding the living spaces to incorporate the outdoors.
A full renovation of a turn of the century craftsman house in Vancouver’s Point Grey neighborhood. Taking advantage of the panoramic views to the north shore; the layout is a gradient from traditional to modern as you move through from south to north.
The informality, openness and cross functionality of the modern spaces contrast with the formality of the living room; giving the family the opportunity to have the best of both worlds – a cozy character home and a modern light filled home.
The upstairs master bedroom, with its incredible view, was rethought as an open set of spaces that fully take advantage of the original roof structure, exposing the ceiling completely through the introduction of new fir collar ties. A light steel structure allowed us to support the full expanse of glass to the north facade; bringing the outside into the house.
The downstairs slab was dropped to create higher ceilings for the family room; and a large pivot door was placed in the middle of the glass facade to support a direct connection to the outdoor garden. For us it was important to maintain the character of the house, not just in its aesthetic; but in its quirky spaces and unexpected moments; and build up on it with modern layer that allowing the house to embrace a modern way of living.
The work of RUFproject, the multi-disciplinary design firm founded by Sean Pearson, contains both a rigorous aesthetic and an open-ness to crossing creative borders. Rather than starting with an idea of form, RUF focuses on the experiential aspect of the space they will create. Leaving behind any pre-conceived ideas of a project, they allow the design to emerge out of the narrative they weave with a client – whether it is a landscape, building, or branding concept.With their wide ranging international experience, grounded in a certain Canadian sensibility, their work is marked by high design standards and originality, but also by a commitment to an in-situ approach that respects the local, even as it references the global. Whether it’s an exquisite line in a Salt Spring Island house that brings the outside in and reinvigorates the tradition of West Coast Modernism, or a clever play between solidity and transparency in a Soweto sports stadium that contributes to a new architectural language in South Africa, RUF’s vision and integrity shine through.
Having demolished their previous home to make way for a new dream family house, the client was keen for the Modern Detached home to be built quickly. The context is unashamedly suburban. Set between the poor examples of 1960s architecture, there are more attractive Arts and Crafts homes nearby. This millieu required a tempered approach that married the client’s desire for an uncompromisingly contemporary design with the restrictions of local planning sensibilities.
We drew inspiration from the Arts and Crafts houses nearby. By studying their complex symmetries, materials and mass, we secured planning permission without compromising the client’s vision, delivering a house that was considerably larger than what had preceded it.
Inside, large areas of glazing and windows keep the spaces light and airy. The central staircase is a play of light and shadows. Outside, a palette of serrated brick details, black charred timber and bronze bring a warmth and luxury, creating a stylish, contextually responsive new house.
TWO ELEMENTS
The house is composed from two distinct elements. The more traditional cellular spaces are contained within a simple brick and plain tiled ‘house’, typical of the area. The contrasting dark timber clad element interlocks with the house type and contains the dramatic double height entrance and circulation spaces as well as open plan kitchen, living dining areas which open to the garden.
At the beginning of the design process an analysis was made of all the different types of Arts & Crafts typologies on the street leading to a proposal that reinterprets the features of an Arts & Crafts house.
DEPTH
The southern and northern facades have brick fin details that give depth to the elevation. The eaves are crisply finished with beautifully cut bricks and recessed integrated gutters.
PLAYFUL SPATIALITY
The staircase adds playful connections to the upper floor as well as enhancing the spaciousness of the house by creating a three storey high void. Like many of the Arts & Crafts properties in the area the house has a predominant parti with the central stair exposed to the street with a central hall and rooms accessed from it. The hall is full of light, delicacy and experience with the grand brass staircase climbing through the triple height volume. Light from the south penetrates from a large ocular zenith window.
CONNECTION TO THE OUTSIDE
The black insertion breaks through to the rear creating a complex relationship with the garden. A contorted glazed threshold creates shading for the south facing sliding doors whilst also increasing the boundary between inside and outside. A series of elliptical and circular dining and bird tables run from the dining area into the garden like throwing pebbles into a pond to allow the family (and the birds) to enjoy the garden at all times of year.
As longtime friends who maintain a mutual respect and admiration, Kevin Caprini and Jerry Pellerin noticed how their differences and complementarities could amount to a successful collaboration. In 2008, they established Caprini & Pellerin and have seen their,teamwork continue to strengthen ever since.,
Kevin Caprini, an architect graduated from the Ecole Supérieure de Paris Val de Seine and Marseille Luminy, is a pragmatic and rigorous achiever. Confident, stable and posed, he knows how to simplify and direct creative energies like no other.
Jerry Pellerin, a graduate of the Ecole Spéciale d’Architecture in Paris (ESA), is a passionate character who manages every project as if his life depended on it. A man of taste with undeniable social ease, Jerry has a strong culture of luxury, from decoration to contemporary art.
Both architects gained important experience in renowned architecture agencies such as Matti-Rivière, Wilmotte & Associates, Valode and Pistre, Atelier 2/3/4 as well as a long collaboration with the Collection Privée Architecture agency.
Today, the two men, supported by a multidisciplinary team, manage their projects from their offices in Cannes, France. The studio consists of 5 other DPLG architects, 4 interior designers, 2 construction project managers, an economist, an accountant, a marketing manager, a personal assistant and an incredible network of experienced craftsmen, landscapers and artists.
The agency offers a diverse range of services: planning & feasibility studies, concept design, architecture and interior architecture, renovation and new-build, decoration, landscaping, custom furniture design, purchase of art and vintage furniture for residential, hospitality and retail projects.
Conceived as both house and private lodge, this large format house occupies a private headland a few kilometres from Tauranga city.
The design essentially comprises a low-slung modernist pavilion – a central external court framed by the house-proper and guest’s quarters. Its arrangement on the site is both deliberately low impact and dynamic, with the upper level (housing the master bedroom and library) traversing the lower plan, thereby providing a porte cochere for the main entrance to the house. The material palette is limited and restrained – only travertine marble, white plaster and timber are used both externally and internally – allowing the magnificent ocean views to be the main focus of every room.
The overriding concern of the client’s brief was to capture the privacy and casual lifestyle offered by the large, unique site. The house is designed to be used in a fluid way, with almost continuous connection between internal and external spaces. Although the house is typically occupied by two people, ample accommodation is provided for both children and guests.
Warren and Mahoney Architects
All images courtesy of Warren and Mahoney Architects
Warren and Mahoney Architects
Warren and Mahoney is the only third-generation architectural practice in New Zealand. Today it is a multidisciplinary design practice offering architectural, interior, graphic, urban and environmentally sustainable design services. more
