The conceptual master plan for the Santa Monica Creek Estate is a remodel and an addition of a residential compound set beside a creek in Santa Monica, California.

The estate, composed of four buildings, draws inspiration from the iconic gable house shape, finished in charred wood façade (also known as Shou Sugi Ban). The two-story buildings are sistered through siting, materiality and form, resulting in a property that reads cohesively from all site angles as well as from the street level.

The main house is located on the North-West side and extends to the North-East end of the property. Its programmed transparency at the ground level allows for uninterrupted connection through the house; to the pool deck at the edge of the creek. A glass bridge reaches across the creek to engage and activate the northern half of the property and lands atop the artist’s studio which looks back towards the pool deck and completes the circuit.

Freed from the tight, restricted footprint of the existing main house, the new home reacts and responds to the different buildings, topography, and landscape zones on site. The entry from street level follows a meandering garden path that slowly descends below the lush canopy of the site’s trees.

Initially a fragmented site, the Santa Monica Creek Estate evolved into an inseparable sanctuary, hidden in plain sight through simple, yet powerful and purposeful interventions creating a single, cohesive estate.