- 1
- 2
- next
- | single page
Aluminum-and-glass doors inspired by British firehouses and made in the United Kingdom fold upward electronically to bring the outdoors into the living room. (Mark Boster / LAT) |
E-mail
Print
NEAR the crest of a hill overlooking the Pacific sits a small, sublime architectural adventure. Its boxy exterior, a windowless facade of steel and stucco, seems to recede into the landscape. But surprises start at the massive front door — an 8-by-9-foot stainless steel slab that opens electronically, like a bank vault.
Inside, floors of inky, blue-tinged steel, set like stone in 2-by-6-foot plates, meet walls of oiled hemlock. An entire ocean-facing wall of glass disappears when its panels fold up to the ceiling. And then there's the master bedroom, which also functions as the master bath, its focal point a glow-in-the-night tub that is a hand-cast resin sculpture.
The house is profoundly personal, the shared minimalist vision of landscape architects Abbie and Bill Burton and their architect Jennifer Luce, who won two American Institute of Architects awards for it in May.
It's the kind of house to experience, rather than just visit. The unusual blend of industrial and natural textures both soothes and startles. Luce manipulates light and space in ways that challenge convention and delight the senses.
"What we're passionate about, along with Jennifer, is design from the essential elements. The raw character of the material is in full view, in its natural form, not covered by anything else," Bill Burton says.
In Luce, 47, Canadian-born with a Harvard design degree, the couple found an artist who heeded the spirit, not just the specifics, of what they wanted.
The Burtons, who live with their two teenagers and a Bernese mountain dog, bought the 1970s, two-story house seven years ago. "It looked frightening at first," Bill Burton says. "Really odd big bedrooms, black walls, mirrors everywhere." But the couple agreed on the home's potential. "It had a great ocean view, great basic form. The flat-roof shell was what we were attracted to. And we loved the upside-downness of it."
Two large bedrooms were on the ground floor. The kitchen, living, dining and master bedroom areas were upstairs, where the entire back of the house overlooks the ocean.
Burton says the bedrooms were too big, the public spaces too small, the ocean view minimized by traditional doors and windows. The kitchen was awful for a couple who loves to cook. "It was fit for a small apartment."
The couple wanted the house totally closed in front, where it faces the street, and totally open to the view in back. They asked Luce to remain within the original footprint (2,800 square feet, including the garage), and to downsize the private rooms equally. "Everybody's private space would take a hit," Burton says. "We would increase the public spaces, which is where we really live."
Luce — who has owned her San Diego firm, Luce et Studio, for 15 years — first designed the Burtons' new Solana Beach offices. Then she started on their house, which was torn down to its wood studs for the renovation.
It is now so different in every way from the original that AIA judges said they were "shocked that it was a remodel." The Burtons did keep a central skylight as a "kind of homage" to the old house. Luce turned that into what looks like an art installation by covering it at ceiling height with light-diffusing industrial fabric the same color as the ceiling. It's an idea she came upon in her design for Nissan's automotive design studios in Farmington Hills, Mich., which won three AIA awards in May.
"Her skylight in the Burton house looks like a Robert Irwin scrim," says Santa Monica architect Lawrence Scarpa, a judge in the San Diego AIA contest. "The details in that house are terrific, especially the doors. Tall doors, skinny doors, concealed doors. All the doors feel like sculpture. Very three-dimensional and spatial. Opening them is like opening jewel boxes."
And then there are those blue-tinged steel floors. The Burtons say they got the idea on a visit to a 50-year-old Wonder Bread bakery in San Diego, where they loved the look of the steel floor, including the marbled patina that occurs over time (which some might call rust).
"We liked that look, but when the steel plates came to the house, they were hot-rolled steel, so they have a sort of blue quality. We love the blue, so now we're going about the process of finding ways to protect and keep the color the way it is," Burton says.
Luce commissioned the steel plates from one of many different metal craftspeople with whom she regularly works. The result is a floor that almost calls out to be touched. Slip off a sandal on a torrid day, and steel caresses the sole with its cool, soft, satiny surface. (Yes, we know steel is hard. But it doesn't feel that way. Burton describes it as "comforting.")
Says Scarpa, "The irony is that people think of steel as cold and industrial. In many ways it's very warm. When it weathers, it's like an old villa, it takes on a patina and a life of its own."
Steel is used in many ways throughout the house. Entering, what you first see is the profile of a sculptural black steel staircase with what appears to be a vast solid wall of hemlock behind it. The wall isn't solid at all. It contains invisible doors that camouflage entries to closets, a powder room and the two teenagers' rooms on the other side of the wall, which each have a bath and garden view.
Looking up to the second floor from the entry, off to one side you see a black steel cantilever, a steel-supported floor that Luce designed to become the dining room.
The stairway leads up to the heart of the house — the commercially rated kitchen. It forms the center of what is essentially one large open living, dining and cooking area, all with an ocean view. Because the Burtons are avid cooks, Luce says, they wanted the kitchen as part of the main living space, rather than off by itself. "It occupies probably the largest square footage devoted to any one function in the house," she says.
Inside, floors of inky, blue-tinged steel, set like stone in 2-by-6-foot plates, meet walls of oiled hemlock. An entire ocean-facing wall of glass disappears when its panels fold up to the ceiling. And then there's the master bedroom, which also functions as the master bath, its focal point a glow-in-the-night tub that is a hand-cast resin sculpture.
The house is profoundly personal, the shared minimalist vision of landscape architects Abbie and Bill Burton and their architect Jennifer Luce, who won two American Institute of Architects awards for it in May.
It's the kind of house to experience, rather than just visit. The unusual blend of industrial and natural textures both soothes and startles. Luce manipulates light and space in ways that challenge convention and delight the senses.
"What we're passionate about, along with Jennifer, is design from the essential elements. The raw character of the material is in full view, in its natural form, not covered by anything else," Bill Burton says.
In Luce, 47, Canadian-born with a Harvard design degree, the couple found an artist who heeded the spirit, not just the specifics, of what they wanted.
The Burtons, who live with their two teenagers and a Bernese mountain dog, bought the 1970s, two-story house seven years ago. "It looked frightening at first," Bill Burton says. "Really odd big bedrooms, black walls, mirrors everywhere." But the couple agreed on the home's potential. "It had a great ocean view, great basic form. The flat-roof shell was what we were attracted to. And we loved the upside-downness of it."
Two large bedrooms were on the ground floor. The kitchen, living, dining and master bedroom areas were upstairs, where the entire back of the house overlooks the ocean.
Burton says the bedrooms were too big, the public spaces too small, the ocean view minimized by traditional doors and windows. The kitchen was awful for a couple who loves to cook. "It was fit for a small apartment."
The couple wanted the house totally closed in front, where it faces the street, and totally open to the view in back. They asked Luce to remain within the original footprint (2,800 square feet, including the garage), and to downsize the private rooms equally. "Everybody's private space would take a hit," Burton says. "We would increase the public spaces, which is where we really live."
Luce — who has owned her San Diego firm, Luce et Studio, for 15 years — first designed the Burtons' new Solana Beach offices. Then she started on their house, which was torn down to its wood studs for the renovation.
It is now so different in every way from the original that AIA judges said they were "shocked that it was a remodel." The Burtons did keep a central skylight as a "kind of homage" to the old house. Luce turned that into what looks like an art installation by covering it at ceiling height with light-diffusing industrial fabric the same color as the ceiling. It's an idea she came upon in her design for Nissan's automotive design studios in Farmington Hills, Mich., which won three AIA awards in May.
"Her skylight in the Burton house looks like a Robert Irwin scrim," says Santa Monica architect Lawrence Scarpa, a judge in the San Diego AIA contest. "The details in that house are terrific, especially the doors. Tall doors, skinny doors, concealed doors. All the doors feel like sculpture. Very three-dimensional and spatial. Opening them is like opening jewel boxes."
And then there are those blue-tinged steel floors. The Burtons say they got the idea on a visit to a 50-year-old Wonder Bread bakery in San Diego, where they loved the look of the steel floor, including the marbled patina that occurs over time (which some might call rust).
"We liked that look, but when the steel plates came to the house, they were hot-rolled steel, so they have a sort of blue quality. We love the blue, so now we're going about the process of finding ways to protect and keep the color the way it is," Burton says.
Luce commissioned the steel plates from one of many different metal craftspeople with whom she regularly works. The result is a floor that almost calls out to be touched. Slip off a sandal on a torrid day, and steel caresses the sole with its cool, soft, satiny surface. (Yes, we know steel is hard. But it doesn't feel that way. Burton describes it as "comforting.")
Says Scarpa, "The irony is that people think of steel as cold and industrial. In many ways it's very warm. When it weathers, it's like an old villa, it takes on a patina and a life of its own."
Steel is used in many ways throughout the house. Entering, what you first see is the profile of a sculptural black steel staircase with what appears to be a vast solid wall of hemlock behind it. The wall isn't solid at all. It contains invisible doors that camouflage entries to closets, a powder room and the two teenagers' rooms on the other side of the wall, which each have a bath and garden view.
Looking up to the second floor from the entry, off to one side you see a black steel cantilever, a steel-supported floor that Luce designed to become the dining room.
The stairway leads up to the heart of the house — the commercially rated kitchen. It forms the center of what is essentially one large open living, dining and cooking area, all with an ocean view. Because the Burtons are avid cooks, Luce says, they wanted the kitchen as part of the main living space, rather than off by itself. "It occupies probably the largest square footage devoted to any one function in the house," she says.
Digg
Twitter
Facebook
StumbleUpon