Baas-Walrod Residence

The exposed wood post and beam structural system of this vacation house recalls the original Sea Ranch structures designed over 30 years ago, originally inspired by the barns and other agricultural structures indigenous to the costal area. The designers sought to embrace the fundamental environmental intentions of the Sea Ranch’s strict architectural guidelines while creating a contemporary place of strong individual character and quiet complexity.

The exposed posts and beams give a visual immediacy to the structural design; the wood siding, stained in subtly mixed custom colors, offer warmth to the interior space. The exterior siding, treated to weather to gray, will harmonize with the surrounding landscape on the site over time.

Outside, the elevations are both distinct and related yielding a shifting sculptural reading. The building form and exterior spaces define each other in dynamic dialogue. The boardformed concrete foundation and horizontal wood siding connect the house to the land and play against the dominant vertical siding and corrugated metal roof.

The 2,500 sf Sea Ranch Residence developed in close response to the rhythms and materials of the rugged coast of Northern California. Close to a coastal bluff, the site falls under strict architectural guidelines. The design sought to embrace the fundamental environmental intentions of the guidelines while creating a contemporary place of strong individual character and quiet complexity. Each part of the house responds to its specific site conditions. The east elevation presents a rugged entry as a contemporary interpretation of the “western front.” The south opens to the ocean with full or partial shading. The west screens the interior from houses across the meadow. The north is shaped as an intimate court with mountain views. A garden of native grasses and rocks suggests a mountain to ocean connection with its implied passage through the center of the house. Spaces are shaped simply in plan, yet shift dramatically in height and present a layered sequence of framed views and paths. Windows are composed to frame near and distant landscape and to celebrate the movement and wash of light. The northeast-facing courtyard catches the morning sun and screens prevailing winds. The towers of the studios collect light and allow for natural convection. The house is configured as a one-room deep array so that all spaces have multiple exposures, optimizing daylight and ventilation. In harmony with its environment, the house celebrates craft and materials and shapes a retreat for quiet contemplation or spirited social interaction.

The Mar Vista Residence features a remarkable array of inside-outside spaces. Interior rooms are strongly oriented to landscape, in keeping with the project’s benign Southern California climate. Interiors are continuous, gently defined, rich in scale, and ordered in sequence, with natural light and exposed structure marking moments of articulation and procession. A folded metal roof is draped over the original house and the larger addition, such that the design walks a fine line between an assemblage of parts and a continuous whole.

The Mar Vista Residence takes particular advantage of an unusual residential neighborhood context—the “race track” block in Mar Vista, Los Angeles. Its narrow but remarkably long lot provided the opportunity for half of the property to be developed as a private garden, looking into the wild, largely undeveloped interior of the oval “race track” super-block. As a remodel and addition, the house maintains its one-story massing facing the street, and builds up at the lot interior into a grander proportion. The basic idea of the house is a linear sequence: The driveway is treated as a formal path, leading to a “car court” and main entrance, which in turn connects on axis through the house to an east-facing “garden front”. In a sense the partii is a classic country house form that is both “stretched” and reinterpreted in modern architecture.