Los Angeles architect Francois Perrin (anyone remember the face-melting Skateboard House?) has shared with us his recently completed project, a private residence in the Hollywood Hills here in sunny Southern California.
Project Description from the Architect:
This private residence is located in the Hollywood Hills, overlooking the City of Los Angeles. It is one of the rare remaining building lots of this neighborhood, also one of the few protected areas in the City.
The building engages with the surrounding environment in order to produce an Architecture that merges with the Landscape. The contemporary design of the house interacts as well with the natural elements (air, sun and vegetation) but has only a little visual impact in the Hills.
The site has a very steep topography but mostly constituted of Bedrock. The North-South orientation offers a panoramic view of the LA basin while being naturally protected from the sun in the warm afternoons. The building casts itself into the site on four levels to create enough living area to accommodate the program but also to reinforce the climatic orientations of the design. Half of the living volume is located underground.
The foundations and retaining walls are made of concrete, which become the primary material of the house. It also creates a thermal mass for the building that in connection with the orientation of the house and its natural ventilation avoids the use of air conditioning. Water circulating through the metal sunscreens is naturally heated and redirected to the radiant floor system.
The building’s skin that opens itself on the exterior is made of insulated glass reflecting the surrounding vegetation. As a result the house disappears into its environment, still managing to open itself to it. The outdoor decks (terraces, swimming pool, patio) are equal in surface to the indoor and allow through the local climate to live outside for most of the year.
Architect: Francois Perrin
Location: Los Angeles, California
Collaborator: Yves Lefay, Designer/Builder (Eliosolar)
Site Area: 9000 sq ft
Building: 3000 sq ft
Completion: 2012
Photography: Michael Wells
8 Comments
i hate the term "insulated glass" - technically, all glass has a u-value, thus providing insulative value...
really .. you hate the term insulated glass. after all of that really nice work, all you have to say is that you hate the term insulated glass. after that quite excellent staircase -- you say you hate that term. you're an insulated glass.
insul(a)ted (gl)aSS!
that is a nice stair (thank you rich neutra!) though i wish the ceiling/floor opening lined up with the stair below ..
I think this house really sucks. Another project where people should not build in Los Angeles. There is no registered architect in California with that name either. I hope there are no pvc fire sprinkler pipes there! Pictures are taken where you don't see the massive retaining walls which tax heavily on the hillside. A good house for a porn movie. Yes, also the insulated glass. Who is kidding whom? Is that the only way to cover up the nouveau riche use of all glass all the time? No good lessons from LA's hillside pedigree learned here. More I look at it more it falls apart. I don't think the stairs are that exceptional or original either. And, doesn't MARR has anything else to say besides the stairs and attacking holz.box comment on glass?
Interesting previous comments. Here's my take:
The house is fine. Steep site = multiple levels. Makes sense. Incredible views = glass walls. No brainer. Glass walls to be energy efficient are probably low "e" double paned. Logical. Concrete foundations and retaining walls becoming part of the house would seem a pretty standard structural solution. Anyone who would maintain there was enough originality to make this project particularly noteworthy? Priceless!
tranz is right - that house is garbage - a multi level turd set into a lot that should be unbuildable. The elevations are so chopped up, looks like they used about 50 different frame profiles for that glazing, the retaining walls out by the pool are overbearing, the switch plates and the utilities by the pool look like butt...I'm sure it is a spec they hope to sell to some hollywood dummy that doesn't know any better. Think of the time and energy it took to entitle this massive waste of natural resources and money...
nothing careful about this house at all
Yes, despite the carefully framed photos and MLS prose, it's clear that this is a massive civil engineering project that happens to have a small house attached. (That's typical for new hillside construction here, however.)
insul(a)ted (gl)aSS!
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