Water Cooler

Architect David Hertz’s client wanted to make a statement with his new home on the Venice boardwalk. His mandate: “Design something dramatic.” Hertz, known for his sustainable architecture, obliged by creating a two-story home with a walkout basement all clad in prefabricated metal refrigerator panels--”the kind used for ice houses and meat lockers,” he explains. But the signature piece of the “Panel House,” as it is now called, is a triple waterfall that cascades from poured-in-place concrete weirs into a reflecting pool, then over a spillway into a catch basin even with the boardwalk. An ingenious 10-by-15-foot living room window, made of three pieces of glass siliconed together to form one giant picture window, lowers to capture incoming breezes. They cool as they flow over the reflecting pool, eliminating the need for air conditioning. The water feature is a visual and sensual experience as well: Boardwalkers often stop to run their hands through the cool water on hot summer days or regard themselves in the mirror-finished windows, while their animal companions slurp water from the catch basin. “Very few people walk by,” says Hertz, “without reaching out and touching it.”

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Water Feature

TRIPTYCH FONT

Architect: David Hertz Architects & Studio of Environmental Architecture, Santa Monica, (310) 829-9932.

Conceit: Waterfall as air conditioner.

Sustainability: “Cools incoming breezes and makes air conditioning unnecessary; photovoltaic panels offset any negative electrical draw.”--David Hertz

Water audio: “Sound is very subtle--it’s hard to compete with the waves.”--D.H.