Program: This project is located at Bergamot Station, an internationally known art center comprised of a series of industrial buildings converted into 45 art galleries including the recently opened Santa Monica Museum of Art. The program includes a ground level studio/gallery space with three artist live/work loft spaces above. The project completed construction in 1999 and was realized with a construction budget of $87/square foot.

The fundamental challenge in this project was determining how to maintain continuity and coherence with the character of the existing industrial warehouse buildings at Bergamot Station without compromising formal and material experimentation and innovation. Thus, this project evolved as a carefully considered response to its context: a primary palette of materials was established with regard to the existing industrial materials at the site. Corrugated metal, steel and glass blend in with the surrounding context while cold rolled steel and translucent lexan panels create moments of distinction in the details of the building that set it apart and help establish its idiosyncratic identity. The building takes advantage of its unique siting amongst the industrial landscape. Nestled in between existing warehouse buildings on a narrow site, the facade facing the interior of the site unfolds itself gracefully along a canted corrugated metal plane that extends itself into the residual space produced by the adjacent buildings. The facade is further animated by window boxes and planes articulated as volumes unto themselves, which push and pull from the facades primary folds. The formal geometries and material richness of this facade have a dynamic effect on the leftover space-turning what was once experienced as in between and perhaps undefined space into one that now flourishes as a kind of courtyard or piazza for itself and the surrounding buildings. In fact, this residual space is now often used to host outdoor receptions and special events.

The building's south facing facade which fronts the public street provides a personality foil for its more geometrically complex and dynamic counterpart on the Arts Complex facing facade. More reserved yet still sculpturally articulate; the formal resolution of this elevation is calmer and more grounded. A flat plane of corrugated metal is broken by pristine rectangular volumes of lexan, concrete block, cold rolled steel and glass which recede to varying degrees creating a constrained yet elegant relief and textural complexity. The exterior of this building never strays to far from its industrial origins and therefore maintains a respectful coherence with its context. Yet, the architects still capitalize on each contextual and formal opportunity in order to create distinction and enhancement for the site and its surrounding context.

Each unit is split level. Public spaces are on the primary level while a bedroom space occupies a loft, which overlooks the public living space. By organizing this split-level condition, the architects could create a double height space, which adds to the feeling of vastness in each unit. While occupying the most private, intimate comer of the unit, each bedroom area is awash in light from a continuous band of skylights along one edge of the building. The double height space on the level below is left uncluttered and open while bathroom; kitchen and circulation cores are tucked into the space below the loft. The space becomes most animated in its details, which distinctly emerge from the more tranquil background. Two flights of wood and steel stairs stand across from each other. Sculptural presences-one leads to a balcony space, the other to the sleeping lofts. When viewed in juxtaposition, they hold each other in poetic balance, one larger and dominant, the other more petite yet solid. In another unit, a poured in place concrete fireplace acts as an anchor to the open plan, which unfolds around it.

Consistent throughout this project is the desire to create a space that capitalizes on its ability to create an elegant and refreshing fluidity and coherence appropriate to its context while also inserting elements of distinction and complexity that help create this building's unique personality.

Colorado Court will be one of the first buildings of its type in the United States that is 100% energy independent. Colorado Court distinguishes itself from most conventionally developed projects in that it incorporates energy efficient measures that exceed standard practice, optimize building performance, and ensure reduced energy use during all phases of construction and occupancy. The planning and design of Colorado Court emerged from close consideration and employment of passive solar design strategies. These strategies include: locating and orienting the building to control solar cooling loads; shaping and orienting the building for exposure to prevailing winds; shaping the building to induce buoyancy for natural ventilation; designing windows to maximize daylighting; shading south facing windows and minimizing west-facing glazing; designing windows to maximize natural ventilation; shaping and planning the interior to enhance daylight and natural air flow distribution.

Colorado Court features several state of the art technologies that distinguish it as a model demonstration building of sustainable energy supply and utilization. These technologies include a natural gas powered turbine/heat recovery system that will generate the base electrical load and hot water demands for the building and a solar electric panel system integrated into the faade and roof of the building that will supply most of the peak load electricity demand. The co-generation system will convert utility natural gas to electricity to meet the base load power needs of the building and will capture waste heat to produce hot water for the building throughout the year as well as space heating needs in the winter. This system will have a conversion efficiency of natural gas in excess of 70% compared to a less than 30% conversion efficiency of primary energy delivered by the utility grid at the building site. The solar photovoltaic system will produce green electricity at the building site that releases no pollutants to the environment. The panels are integral to the building envelope and unused solar electricity will be delivered to the grid during the daytime and retrieved from the grid at night as needed. These systems will pay for themselves in less than ten years and annual savings in electricity and natural gas bills are estimated to be in excess of $6000.

Comprised of two separate and distinct residences for a pair of brothers with a shared interest in maximizing the potential of their downtown Santa Monica property, 1544 Euclid is an exploration of boundaries — physical and psychological — and juxtaposition — formal, spatial and material. Uniquely taking advantage of its site and client, 1544 Euclid emerges as a richly layered spatial experience. Through careful composition of its program and elements —form and material, private and shared spaces, interior and exterior and planted and built landscape — this project exhibits a keen reverence for the California architectural heritage from which its springs while boldly introducing innovations that suggest the emergence of a new generation of California Modernism.

1544 Euclid is located on a 50' x 150' urban lot bridging the threshold between a multiple dwelling residential zone and a light industrial/commercial zone. Flanked on either side by nondescript buildings — a single story commercial building to the south and a three story monolithic apartment building to the north — the thoughtful positioning and articulation of the two new structures transforms what was once a flat, undistinguished property. Positioned like sculptures, 22' apart on opposite ends of the lot, the buildings establish powerful formal relationships affording the opportunity of better understanding each by virtue of the presence of the other.

Building "A", located in the front, sits on the northern edge of the lot, it's L-shaped configuration providing a barrier towards the street and an entry edge along the north. Building "B", located towards the back adjacent to the alley, occupies a much wider portion of the lot leaving only narrow passages on either side. A 10'x40' lap pool literally divides the site in two. While the pool is a shared feature, it clearly establishes separate territories for each residence. The positioning of the buildings and the strategic placement of the pool effectively organizes the residual outdoor space.

A hallmark of California modern architecture, these outdoor spaces are designed as extensions of the interior. Conceived as outdoor living rooms, these courtyards become significant features in the spatial experience. Both buildings feature concrete slabs that continue from interior to exterior as finish material. Poured level with the garden, inside and outside become one. Exterior perimeter walls double as interior walls for these outdoor rooms whose edges are further accentuated with rows of planting providing an additional layer of depth and texture. The site becomes a composition of interlocking indoor and outdoor spaces arranged to provide distinction without compromising spatial continuity.

While each has its own identity, the buildings share several organizational and formal motifs. Both feature primary public spaces on the ground level. Living, dining and kitchen areas are rendered around an open plan oriented towards exterior courtyards. Private spaces — bedroom, master bathroom and studyÑare located on the second level. Taking advantage of the mild California climate, each is appointed with a covered balcony or patio overlooking the yard. A concrete block wall extending the length of both buildings forms the only physical connection between the two. This wall transforms into a bridge at the gap between buildings demarcating threshold into the yard and providing access to a shared observational roof deck atop buiding "B". Loft like, double height spaces characterize both buildings. Clerestory windows, skylights and walls of glass flood the interiors with light and provide further connection to the outside. Both buildings feature a collage of materials: concrete, sheet metal, metal screen and glass. Juxtaposition is paramount. Weight and weightless materials sit side by side. Transparent merges into opaque. Solid becomes void. Concrete abuts glass. Earth gives way to water. Materials fold across planes at once defining floor, wall and roof in one continous sweep.

Program: To transform an existing commercial interior space into the signature headquarters for a cutting edge artist management company. Located on the 4th floor of a Beverly Hills high-rise, the program includes executive suites for the principals of the company, offices for other members of the executive team,assistants, and support staff, two conference rooms, a kitchen and lounge area, reception and miscellaneous service rooms.

Solution: The clients for this project needed to occupy a finished space within sixteen weeks from the beginning of the design process. This allowed for a very limited incubation period in which ideas had to be generated and realized. To meet this demand, a systematic working strategy that capitalized on the extreme constraints of the project and a team approach was adopted. Client, contractor and architect collaborated with an unprecedented synergism. Ultimately, the architecture emerged from the inventive and dynamic atmosphere that was cultivated in response to the particular conditions of the project.

The program was strategically divided into distinct and separate areas that could be developed and detailed in phase with the construction schedule: each programmatic element or area was explored in depth and developed in detail, presented to the client and then dimensioned and issued to the contractor for construction. Design decisions were made in close association with the contractor and various fabricators whose expertise was fundamental to the project. A complex set of issues and relationships involving time, money, design, construction and fabrication created a context in which emphasis was necessarily placed on the process of making and the craft of construction. In order to realize the Firm on time an on budget, all drawings generated for the project served as both client presentation and construction document. The immediacy of working in this Ôone take' or Ôlive broadcast' context resulted in an architecture that, in essence, evolved as a drawing at full scale.

The architecture responds by creating a landscape that bridges the film and music Ôcommunities' of the company. Core elements of the existing structure are stripped bare and maintained as established fixed order. New insertions of space and form flow in and around the existing container shaping a diaologue between the old structure optimized to its purest condition and these new inventive forms. The juxtaposition of these formal hierarchies creates a dynamic tension that enhances the spatial experience of both. While the film and music divisions of the company occupy distinct areas in the space, there is never a decisive division between the two. They are connected spatially and visually by the more public reception and lounge area of the Firm. This central meeting zone, around which all other elements unfold, begins to function more like a piazza or public square where clients can hang out, watch TV, mingle etc. Conversations and meetings can freely flow from more private offices into this more public central zone as necessary. Architectural elements reinforce this concept of flowing space. While hierarchies within the company are architecturally expressed (i.e. the executives occupy distinct and central offices on the edge of the building ) the architecture works to break down and confront boundaries and containment. The polished concrete slab at the ground plane establishes a continuous field that remains constant throughout. This plane serves to unite the free floating, programmatic elements that animate the space and furthermore brings them into a balanced composition with the exposed grid of structural columns that rhythmically order the overall spatial container.

Nestled amidst a neighborhood of single story bungalows in Venice, California, the Brooks/Scarpa Residence boldly establishes a precedent for the next generation of California modernist architecture. Located on a 41' wide x 100' long through lot, the Brooks Scarpa addition transforms the architects' existing 850 square foot bungalow into a 2200 square foot residence equipped for responsible living in the twenty-first century.

Inspired by Paul Rudolph's Umbrella House of 1953, the Solar Umbrella provides a contemporary reinvention of the solar canopy — a strategy that provides thermal protection in climates with intense exposures. In establishing the program for their residence, which accommodates the couple and their one child chose to integrate into the design, principles of sustainability that they strive to achieve in their own practice. The architects carefully considered the entire site, taking advantage of as many opportunities for sustainable living as possible. Passive and active solar design strategies render the residence 100% independent from the grid. Recycled, renewable, and high performance materials and products are specified throughout. Hardscape and landscape treatments are considered for their aesthetic and actual impact on the land. The Brooks Scarpa Residence elegantly crafts each of these strategies and materials, exploiting the potential for performance and sensibility while achieving a rich and interesting sensory and aesthetic experience.

Throughout the residence, the architects resourcefully take materials and contextually reposition them as design elements. Solar panels, conventionally relegated to a one dimensional utilitarian application, define envelope, provide shelter and establish a distinctive architectural expression. Homosote, an acoustical panel made from recycled newspaper is palm-sanded and used as a finish material for custom cabinets. OSB (oriented strand board) a structural grade building material composed of leftover wood chips compressed together with high strength adhesive, becomes the primary flooring material where concrete is not used. Sanded, stained and sealed, the OSB floor paneling provides a cost effective and materially responsible alternative to hardwood. Materials are selected for both performance and aesthetic value. Metal stud construction replaces conventional wood framing. Recycled steel panels, solar powered in-floor radiant heating, high efficiency appliances and fixtures, and low v.o.c. paint replace less efficient materials. Decomposed granite and gravel hardscape are used in place of concrete or stone. Unlike their impervious alternatives, these materials allow the ground to absorb water and in turn, mitigate urban run-off to the ocean. Drought tolerant xeriscaping compliments the textures and palette of the building while providing a low maintenance, aesthetically appealing landscape.