The firm CALLAS SHORTRIDGE architects, formerly known as ISRAEL CALLAS SHORTRIDGE ASSOCIATES, has been in existence since 1996.  Before that time, both Steven Shortridge and Barbara Callas were senior associates with the parent firm of Franklin D. Israel Design Associates in Beverly Hills, and oversaw the design and construction of many influential projects.  Together they continue the high standards of design excellence started by the late Mr. Israel.

Our firm believes a collaborative approach is necessary to achieve great architecture.  The dialogue with the owner and builder is integral to our design process.  Working with specific site influences, we orchestrate the owner’s program and desires with the architectural elements of structure, space, material, and light.  The success of this process is best reflected in the high level of client satisfaction achieved. 

Articles on the firm’s work have been published in Architectural Digest, Metropolitan Home, Architecture, Architectural Record, The New York Times, and other journals and magazines in the United States and abroad.

Located high above Pacific Coast Highway in the Pacific Palisades area of Los Angeles, the Rochman Residence is an extensive renovation to an existing late 50’s house.  The house sits on the edge of a steep downhill slope with spectacular panoramic views of the ocean and the Malibu coastline.  Originally conceived with Frank Israel, the project has since been developed and executed by Callas Shortridge architects.

Referred to by the clients as an “upside -down house,” the 3,500 square foot project appears as a single story residence on the street side, which quickly drops to two-stories on the ocean side.  Due in part to the neighborhood’s strict height requirements and the prominent horizon line, the roofline is a continuous horizontal parapet shared by exterior walls which lean outward from the core of the house.  The outward tilting walls are reinforced from the coastline below against a backdrop of cliff, where the living room corner of the house emerges through the trees in a two-story wedged volume embedded in the slope.

On the street level plan, the exterior walls splay away from a central core, which divides the private areas from the living spaces.  These living spaces are organized in an open plan culminating in the living room with a 25-foot wide window, which wraps the corner of the house and hangs over the edge of the slope.  Extending from the dining room is a cedar trellis that cantilevers over the deck expanding the living area outside.  Tucked behind a colored plaster wall, the interior stair bisects the private and living spaces and descends to the master bedroom suite and outdoor garden.  This garden completes the experience with a landscaped pathway and terraces the meander down the slope.

This 5,500 square foot winter home for a retired Philadelphia couple looks out onto the Florida Inter-coastal waterway.  The two-story structure steps away from the water and is set along the north edge of the site, affording views through the gardens.  A giant roof form, covered in zinc sheets, folds over the main living spaces and out into the entry courtyard to form the porte-cochere.

A large vehicular forecourt enclosed by white concrete block and plaster walls forms the entry.  Clearly delineated from the main areas of the house, the entry is linked to the major rooms by a two-story, orange integral-color plaster wall, which directs movement along the longitudinal axis.  This wall, which serves as the spine of the house, is thickened to contain and screen service spaces, and acts as a display surface for the clients’ collection of paintings and art objects.  Because the owners’ lifestyle required kitchen and maids’ areas to be separate from the entertaining and living spaces of the house, service spaces are to the north of this main wall. To the south terrazzo-floored living areas open up to the terrace and waterway.  The house extends towards the Inter-coastal, the linear thrust of the plan carrying outside into a series of exterior spaces: a barbecue area, a terrace, a lap pool, and a boat dock.

The second floor master bedroom is composed of a suite of rooms, which project like a prow from the main roof form of the house.  One guest room is reached by crossing a bridge over the entry hall; the other is a garden pavilion. All rooms are afforded dynamic views of the site and waterway.

The 542 House is a renovation of an existing 750 square foot bungalow in Venice, California.  The original structure was a fragment from a larger house that was moved to the site in 1937.  Vacant for nearly a decade, the structure was extensively remodeled for use as the architect’s own residence.

The exterior procession has been reoriented away from the busy street front to a new side gate, set in a concrete panel and fiberglass screen wall.  From here one enters the garden terrace, which sits on a raised plinth and serves as the outside living room, with walls of palms, bamboo, and a steel-plate fireplace wall.  This space flows directly into the house through the old back door, transformed into two doors with glass to strengthen the continuity of inside and out.  This entrance defines a visible axis slicing through the house, running from the terrace fireplace, through the living room, and into the office area.

Retaining and respecting elements from the original and building upon them with new forms and strategies create a depth in time.  The living room is defined by a large existing breakfront, relocated to create a boundary with the kitchen.  The bedroom/office can be closed off from this area by a large pocket door, preserved from the original house.  Portions of the existing ceilings have been raised to ten feet and finished in tongue-and-groove Douglas fir to match existing window frames and flooring.  This wood is played through the house in a new series of built-in cabinets of stained MDF and Douglas fir veneer, which define dressing and bedroom areas and provide much needed storage to a house with no closets.

Designed as a continuous living space through the entire depth of its Venice lot, the 543 House provides a series of adaptable and varying living environments that are closely interrelated with one another and their connection to the outdoors.  A seamless relationship and flow of space from south-facing, outdoor living room to kitchen, dinning and living, creates a sense of openness, transparency and visual interest as spaces and views on the lower level are unobstructed. This inside/outside connection is reinforced by large expanses of glass that take advantage of this house’s favorable corner lot placement, allowing light and air to permeate through from three sides.

In the 543 House, space and light flow from central stairs that circumnavigate a grand 31’ high light well, allowing natural light to wash through the center of the house.  A folded steel stair with wood treads, connects the public areas of the house with private bedrooms above.  Spatial and visual openness is still retained, however, as the open stair design retains visual connections with the main living areas below.

Two main bedroom areas define the signature look of the 543 House from the exterior, the master bedroom suite and two additional bedrooms.  These two crisp boxes shift vertically in elevation to give each bedroom area a level of separation and privacy, providing a contemporary and eloquent face to the street corner.  Within the front box, the master bedroom suite has broad views from its large expanse of glass, a proper walk through closet, and a large master bath, which gains ample natural light from both skylights and light wells surrounding it.  The adjacent box contains two bedrooms with large windows opening to the north and a large shared bath.  Above the master bedroom at the top of the stairwell, is a 500 square foot roof deck, which offers sweeping views of its Venice neighborhood and sky.

In essence, this modern 2200 square foot home is innovative yet refined, contemporary yet comfortable, and fully takes advantage of the light, temperature and breezes that come with proximity to the Pacific Ocean.

This project is an interior renovation to an existing, post-tensioned concrete slab, low-rise building located at Sunset Boulevard and Pacific Coast Highway.  The goal was to combine two corner units on the fourth floor into one.  This union allows for stunning views of the Pacific Ocean and the hills of the Santa Monica Mountain Conservancy.  The challenge was to capture these vistas from a majority of the living spaces while maximizing the art display walls for the clients’ modern art collection.  This has been achieved by providing a “gallery space” of long angled art walls that guide and frame the natural scenery.

The gently sloping site sits within a tightly packed residential neighborhood with distant views towards the hills.  The challenge was to provide privacy while allowing free flowing public space that engages the outdoors in this temperate climate.  The solution that emerged was an elevated box containing the bedrooms clad in a wood screen skin.  It is rotated on the site annexing the space of an adjacent easement.  Within this upper level volume, bedroom spaces are located relative to the views in and out of the box.  Hillside views are framed while the neighborhood’s views in are blocked and filtered with the detailing of the wood screen.

The wood box is elevated and structured by a series of linear ground form walls stretching the length of the site.  These walls create a distinct directional field across the site, which forms the layout of the lower level public spaces.  An infill wood and glass window system completes the lower lever level enclosure.  Hovering above, the bottom of the wood box forms the ceiling of the lower public spaces.  Where the public spaces move outside the line of the wood box, three sloping roof planes enclose the public spaces creating dynamic spatial intersections of ground form, wood box and sloping roof.

The owners of this commercial office building had air rights for more space on top.  As a speculative venture they decided to develop this added space for residential use.  We were brought in as the design architects with London based Andrews Downie and Partners as executive architects.

The volume was shaped mostly by shadow studies giving us our maximum buildable area.  The owners wanted to maximize this for return on their investment.  We arrived at adding two new floors and using the existing top floor to make eight apartments.  Four lower level and four penthouse units which have 3 levels each.

The existing building is symmetrical on to the Macklin street side and becomes irregular on the other three sides.  This irregularity coupled with the light shadow volumes generated complex forms for enclosure.  The symmetry of the building is reflected in an existing light well at the center that was used for elevator entry to the apartments.  The order of the plan symmetry is reinforced in the front units and the light well, with the forms becoming more irregular as they respond to the three sides.  At ground level, there is a car park built into part of the existing ground floor and entered from Parker Mews on the rear side of the building.  A new entry hall with a straight continuous solid block wall balanced by a folded plane wall and ceiling connect Macklin Street and the car park to the elevator.  The elevator is only for access to the apartments with entry halls at two levels for 4 apartments each.  The glass elevator rises from the dark car park up into the light where entry halls of glass open to the light well.

All apartments have multiple levels and terraces; the penthouses have more of both of these.  The penthouse units also each have their own conservatory spaces.  Walls of glass and/or fiberglass panels (light) are balanced off of solid sloping walls/roofs.  Openings collect into large expanses of light rather than traditional punched windows.  On the car park entrance side, paired steel columns ground the rooftop landscape with louvered overlook glass screen at the upper terrace levels.  The design gives the existing building a new top: a landscape of roofs and terraces opening up to light.

This house on Eastern Lake in Southern Florida has views looking across white sand dunes to the Gulf of Mexico.  The site had an existing single-story house that was referenced when building a separate garage and guesthouse in 1994.  In 1995, after Hurricane Opal caused major damage, it was decided to completely rebuild the main house.  The form of the house resulted from distributing spaces around the myrtle oak trees existing on the site.  Upon the resulting buildable ground, the interior spaces are orientated to look out towards the water and the trees.

The geometry emerges from the context of adjacent built structures, which differ on either side due to the varied edge of the lake.  This results in two orthogonal directions, which weave together through the plan of the house.  A linear axis begins from an existing grove of trees, passes through the house, and extends out into the lake.  Many references for this house are based upon the southern vernacular.  Sheltering roofs with large overhangs shade and protect openings from the frequent rains typical of the region.  Screen porches are necessary to enjoy the warm summer evenings free from insects.  Similar to traditional beach houses, piles are used to prop the simple house forms off the ground.  Structural elements are formally predominant given the need to anchor a very tall and open house against hurricane forces.  The piles raise spaces for views outward to the Gulf and allow for large window wall enclosures beneath.  Wood beams and cable bracing tie these piles together.  Concrete block walls emerge from the ground, sheltering and enclosing space.  The block chimney is the tallest element, and serves to ground the house at its core.

The materials used are common to the region and generally remain in their natural state.  Corrugated sheet metal roofs cover walls of painted wood siding and of sandblasted exposed concrete block.  Natural wood is used for the decks, balcony, and dock.  Screen enclosed exterior living spaces and painted wood window walls enclose the interior spaces.  Cypress wood beams and galvanized steel rods brace the piles of southern pine.