California

For this project, we were tasked with expanding a house originally designed by renowned architect Donald Knorr in the 1960s. Our clients wanted to enlarge the kitchen, dining area, and master bedroom, while also adding a family room, entertainment space, and an additional bedroom. Caption Caption Caption We preserved Knorr’s iconic "cross" layout and maintained the A-frame bedroom/living room volume. However, we replaced the A-frame master suite and kitchen/dining areas with new, contemporary volumes that enhance both efficiency and functionality. The flat roof of the new addition allowed us to incorporate a green roof with a water collection system for irrigation. The south-facing overhang shields the home from summe... More

At the foothills of the San Gabriel Mountains, in the community of Altadena, the existing single family residence is located on a large flat lot. The existing house had no connection to the back yard. The owners, a family of four had outgrown the house and approached LOC to help conceive of an addition that would provide the family with two new bedrooms and bathrooms. Constrained by the location of the existing garage, LOC envisioned a courtyard type house, stitching the new to the old through the introduction of a large deck, providing privacy for the master bedroom at the rear of the house, while taking advantage of the vast rear yard. Molly Haas With the use of handmade tile and smooth stucco, the new building pays homage to the tr... More

Imagine Village Apartments is designed with the community and environment in mind.  Los Angeles-based firm HC+RA, a collaborative studio endeavor comprising Hatch-Colasuonno Studio and Relativity Architects, created a LEED Gold affordable housing community of 76 mixed units to support veterans and low-income families in Lancaster, CA.  Integrated into the arid high-desert landscape, the affordable housing complex of four connected buildings also serves as an extension of an existing network of the adjacent adoption/foster center, support services, and community areas.  Utilizing the two-acre site, HC+RA achieved a balance of density and open space by programming multiple three-level buildings with varying resident and unit ty... More

Claiming its name from the type of supporting framework used in railroad construction, Trestle Apartments is a new 28,601 square-foot residential development consisting of 202 units—six, three-floor residential buildings and two, two-floor retail buildings. Trestle sits on the larger campus of the San Carlos Transit Village, a mixed-use development designed around the San Carlos Caltrain station. The site was originally designed and contracted under Christiani Johnson Architects (CJA), which continued when CJA joined Alameda-based MBH Architects. For the housing and retail component of the mixed-use development, MBH created a TOD (transit-oriented development) at the station while preserving the historic train depot.  Caption... More

Built to take full advantage of its natural surroundings and incorporate the outdoors with indoors, the Westfall Residence has a warm, yet modern quality. Wrapped in western red cedar siding and elongated warm brick profiles, natural materials are used to reflect the site’s ruralness and create a dialogue with the local vernacular.Located in the rural countryside of East Canton, Ohio and situated on a secluded 40-acre lot the home is comprised of a Y-shaped floor plan to maximize views of the surrounding hills.  Floor to ceiling glazing enables indoor-outdoor connections, while an earth-berm emphasizes the gesture of the home extending out from the landscape. Caption   The ground floor consists of a centrally located... More

Born out of the desire for a men’s collection that looked at home in the city but was built to withstand the outdoors, Aether worked with Assembledge+ to develop their new flagship store that would support the brand’s mission to create a complete lifestyle collection for urban-dwelling, design-focused, well-travelled men and women. Yoshihiro Makino Located in the heart of Los Angeles’ La Brea design district, the retail space is set in a 4,000square-feet industrial space. Two full-sized glass garage doors open onto the sidewalk, facilitating interaction with the pedestrians, and allowing for natural light and air to fill the space. Yoshihiro Makino Inside, the store features a walk-in freezer for prospective ge... More

Located in Larchmont Village in Los Angeles, Vernetti is a neighbourhood restaurant where old school meets new school Italian.  Inspired by a century-long history of Italian-American cuisine, Assembledge+ collaborated with the restaurant owners to remodel and expanded the space into a cleaner, more modern aesthetic.  An open wall separates the bar and restaurant yet allows for visual connectivity. Interior materials and fixtures are sourced from various artisans and fabricators to evoke a modernized European bistro aesthetic. Tables and bar top are made locally out of reclaimed wood; hardware and light fixtures are brass; an expansive, starphire glass storefront and hanging interior mirrors allow patrons to better enjoy... More

CO Architects conceptualized a functional and flexible vertical garden hospital set within a campus configuration.  The greenfield site—part of a 186-acre business park currently under development—is bounded by residential property to the west, light industrial development to the north, Citracado Parkway and a Sempra power plant to the east, and future business park development  to the south.  The plan positions the hospital at the north end of the site, where there is the greatest width to accommodate necessary access points and circulation.     The signature patient tower building—with its gently curving form—figuratively opens its arms to welcome patients.  A vertical garden at the... More

The interdisciplinary Tata Hall for the Sciences, designed by CO Architects, increases research capacity at the University of California, San Diego (UC San Diego), and provides a new hub for teaching and scholarly engagement.  The 130,000-square-foot, seven-floor building combines research and teaching from two different departments, biology and chemistry.  Recognizing that many scientific breakthroughs occur through interdisciplinary collaboration, UC San Diego required research labs to be designed to encourage interaction, with work benches grouped together in an open area, rather than in separate spaces, which is common in typical lab layouts.  Specialized research procedure rooms are situated at the ends of the building t... More

Located 12 miles from the Pacific Ocean along California’s Central Coast, is the home for a new Wine Library to join the award-winning winery and tasting room structures that maintain the spirit of agrarian structures that are subservient to the landscape. Stealthily positioned to the south of the recently completed Tasting and Hospitality Building, the cut-and-cover storage program buries itself below a vegetated roof of native grasses to seamlessly blend into the bank of the hill. Screened from the road above, the building connects to the Tasting Room terrace via a gentle path where board-formed concrete retaining walls provide an exclusive and revealing entry. The 20,000 bottle library relies predominantly on passive cooling with... More

Architecture/Interiors: Form4 Architecture John Marx, AIA, Design Principal Year:                              2014 Size:                               1,900-sqft   Design:                          Designed for two artists—one also the architect—this rear addition to a one-bedroom house symbolizes architecture of linearity and sequence, where all of the rooms across the three stories have a sightline, progressively more expansive as one moves higher, overlooking a downward sloping garden and panoramas of th... More

The Harbor in Los Angeles’ Marina Del Rey is the largest man-made small craft harbor in the world, which is a valuable resource if you are a boater. Unfortunately for a cyclist or pedestrian, the Marina breaks the existing pathway connecting the North and South route. Cyclists and pedestrians who want to experience the Los Angeles urban coastline must make a lengthy detour around the Marina, hindering the quintessential LA experience of cycling or walking along the Santa Monica Bay. To solve this problem, we are proposing a new pedestrian and bike path that bridges over the harbor entrance.The pathway is a five percent sloped spiral ramp that is nestled within a latticed shell structure. It was generated by lofting two rotated ellipses alon... More

A bespoke home nestled and perched atop a hill in the Oaks in Hollywood hills, the residence was born out of desire for highly considered design within a modest footprint. In consideration of the environment and the desire to simplify, the clients yearned for a smaller footprint for their family residence, much like their New York City Penthouse loft. Inset at a 45 percent slope, the parcel posed a challenge for the design team. Taking cues from the clients’ Irish travels and many visits to great castles, one enters from the top of the site across a wood and steel bridge spanning a secret garden through a monumental Bronze door. Always covered, the secret garden connects shafts of light into the guest bath through a skylight, creating the f... More

Located in the Templeton Gap area of West Paso Robles, this simple agricultural storage structure rests at the toes of the 50 acre James Berry Vineyard. Designed as a modern pole barn, the reclaimed oil field pipe structure’s primary objectives are to provide an armature for a photovoltaic roof to reduce the purchase of electric energy for the adjacent Saxum Winery, collect rainfall for irrigating trees and adjacent grazing meadow, as well as to provide workshop space and covered storage for farming vehicles, implements, and livestock supplies.  The photovoltaic system is designed to produce roughly 88,700 kWh per year, with the capacity to take Saxum Winery and the vineyard irrigation wells off-grid.   Photography: Casey... More