Sunset House located in Santa Monica, California is a complete repurposing of an existing two – story residence set into a natural hillside overlooking the Municipal golf course. This holistic remodel transforms the house through the use of a critically designed singular folded roof, which organizes the public and private spaces under it for optimizing the views, interior space and solar orientation.
Additionally, the design captures the space of the existing walk out basement into a completely integrated living space that opens directly out onto a new partially covered deck and pool area.
Monokuro House is a two story, pioneering residential project in an older suburban neighborhood of mostly traditional one story houses, located in Southern California. Built for a Japanese family with two young children, the clients were interested in an extremely simple modern house that would express the clear Dark/Light contrast found in traditional Japanese architecture.
The building form creates a distinct singular object with moments of subtraction: a hollow vessel with negative space carved out of the exterior “shell” revealing a completely white interior lining. This carefully shaped, smooth interior contributes directly to the day-lighting design and facilitates the flow of air as part of the passive ventilation system.
Monokuro House locates the public spaces on the ground level where they open up to intimate and private outdoor areas, providing unrestricted indoor/outdoor living in the gardens. Private spaces occupy the second level.
Simplicity of form is part of our ongoing investigation into a lower cost model for a passive solar home, where the thoughtful and highly specific layout, together with the use of readily available and locally sourced materials, contributes to reduction of waste as well as shorter construction times.
The use of corrugated cement fiber board as a singular exterior cladding material reinforces the elemental nature of the house and places it clearly as an object in the landscape.
This unique residential compound was designed for the Owner of a property with four existing apartment units. Two units join with the Owner’s front unit to create a courtyard that is entered from the street. The fourth apartment is in the rear located over the existing garages.
An innovative solution was required in order to add 1,000 square feet to the Owner’s unit while respecting the existing layout of the rental apartments and responding to new front and side yard requirements that substantially restricted the allowable buildable area. The design transforms the existing main level into an open plan for the public spaces, and locates the private office area and bedrooms upstairs in the new addition. Our vision includes bringing in an abundance of daylight and maximizing fresh air: Upper and lower stories are connected by a stairway that is also a passive solar thermal chimney and source of light. The generous upper landing area functions as the open office, looking out over the lush green roof that covers the main level kitchen, dining, and living areas.
Our design approach demonstrates the most sustainable development option for this property by greatly enhancing the “Owner’s Residence” in the front while preserving and updating the existing rentals in an R-1 zone that consistently loses rental housing to new Single Family developments. This project transforms the existing outdated apartment buildings into a contemporary yet intimate compound: a modern and warm architecture of sustainability.
Completed in March 2011, the Pavilion House is a 5,600 square foot sustainably designed passive solar home located in Pacific Palisades, California. From the inception of the design the home’s layout and massing were informed by the sites unique boundaries and topography. The steep South facing elevation change from back to front offered an opportunity to engage the house eight feet into the hillside and integrate a stone clad thermal mass wall. This major design element contributes to the highly performative nature of the house as well as the warmth and texture of the home’s “rustic modernism”.
Protected by a native green roof this “sheltered pavilion” opens to the connected outdoor dining and pool areas through the use of sliding glass panels. An open entertaining area, housing a library, living room and dining, is fronted by a “solar loggia” that protects these spaces from direct South sun while inviting the solar energy into the home as part of the passive solar heating strategy.
The Pavilion House integrates sustainable systems with a high level of architectural design creating a beautiful home that runs on a fraction of the energy typical of homes its size. We believe that our project demonstrates a clear sustainable vision for residential design of this scale.
The Malibu Bluff House is the remodel of an existing 3,800 square foot ranch house into a sustainably designed, passive solar home located on the bluffs of Malibu, California. The residence has large expanses of South facing glazing to allow direct solar gain and to maximize the expansive ocean views. The design includes a 3,000 square foot green roof, planted with native grasses, and a high mezzanine reading loft that acts as the passive exhaust for the main level.
The home features FSC Certified Western Red Cedar siding, FSC Certified engineered lumber and plywood, cotton denim batt insulation, zero formaldehyde cabinetry, low or zero VOC finishes, and natural plaster throughout. A photovoltaic array provides for all the home’s power needs while a separate active solar thermal water heating system provides the hot water needed for domestic use, the in-floor hydronic radiant heating system, and the pool and spa.
The Beitcher Residence was conceived as a showcase of modern sustainable design for an extremely eco-conscious family. As a joint vision of architect and client, sustainability was a top priority with the goal of generating a model of responsible residential development in the neighborhood.
The siting of the house responds to the San Vicente Boulevard condition to the North and a desire for optimal solar orientation from East and the South. The house demonstrates W3 Architects’ development of passive solar strategies for two-story dwellings that incorporate appropriate thermal mass on the ground floor and a lighter weight structural design for the second level. In addition, the home’s green aspects include solar thermal water heating for domestic hot water, in-floor radiant heat and the pool/spa. A palette of environmentally sound building materials has been used throughout the design, many of which are unconventional, cost-effective, and utilized as unusual and aesthetically appealing design elements.
Beyond the significance of the individual sustainable features, the outstanding characteristic is the comprehensive, holistic approach to integrating technology and architecture. The careful considerations of environment, livability, client requirements and aesthetics in the process of design and construction have produced an exemplary model of sustainable design excellence.
The Beitcher Residence was published in the book “Bioclimatic Architecture”; a publication of international sustainable architecture.
As a house for a New Yorker now living in Santa Monica, the Devito Residence was conceived as a Manhattan brownstone transplanted to the beach. Located seven lots inland from the Pacific Ocean on a very narrow land parcel, this three-level residence accommodates 4,000 square feet of living space including subterranean parking, media room and a home office on the lowest level. The bedrooms occupy the middle level, allowing the master bedroom to open onto a private garden with spa, while the entire upper level is designed as an open loft for living and entertaining.
The ultra compact nature of the site generated carefully interwoven and vertical volumes. This design allowed for maximized utilization of wind-driven passive ventilation, taking advantage of the consistent prevailing ocean breezes. With no cooling load requirement, the house’s 3-kilowatt photovoltaic power system generates all the power required for this ocean-side home.
For an architect, designing and building a studio for oneself is an opportunity to experiment, do research, and demonstrate core ideas. The McRight/Wagner studios were developed as a model of the “two-story passive solar house for Los Angeles.”
The Studios incorporate a thermally massive 8-inch CMU block ground level structure for the utilization of direct gain passive solar design and a lighter framed second story construction of engineered lumber with fiber cement paneling at the exterior. Together, the structure contains a 1,100 square foot architectural office for W3 Architects with a 1,100 square foot studio above for artist Blue McRight. The building features a passive solar water heating system integrated into the in-floor radiant heating and is passively ventilated by a series of large custom steel doors that capture and direct the prevailing on-shore breezes. Incorporating recycled and sustainable materials throughout, the simplicity of the design and integration of innovative sustainable technologies earned the project a citation award in 2003 from the Los Angeles American Institute of Architects.
Occupying a corner lot in a West Los Angeles neighborhood along Mississippi Avenue, one block off Sawtelle Boulevard, the Mississippi Lofts duplex is connected to one of the most active pedestrian streets in the area. This neighborhood of older Japanese businesses, restaurants, nurseries, and homes maintains the scale and charm of a unique time. The placement of the 2,711 square foot duplex responds to its corner site on the Northeast and a desire for optimal solar orientation for the South. The developer’s desire for a large sunny garden and the goal of maintaining maximized open space created a vertical stacking along the North and elongation to the West, allowing full Southern exposure. The open space created is enhanced by a drought-tolerant garden and also function as an area for subsurface irrigation fed by the building’s on-site greywater system.
Mississippi Lofts is a two-unit solar duplex. Both units have separate two car garages and unique outdoor spaces. Because of its compact design allowing for outdoor space consistent with the scale of the existing neighborhood, the project received unanimous support from the local neighborhood association.
The placement of the Nuss-Mashaal residence on its site responds to the goal of creating a passive solar residence while respecting the scale of its Venice neighborhood. By setting back the two-story volume an extra 20 feet from the required 16’-6” front yard setback, and the one-story volume an extra ten feet, the 4,000 square foot building mass is significantly softened to the street.
Solar orientation is optimized though the creation of a long, thin volume that exposes maximum wall area to the South. The long South façade allows for winter solar heat gain while the upper level volume cantilevers over the main level, shading its moveable glazing walls from unwanted summer sun. The upper level bedrooms utilize thin overhangs for shading and operable windows and skylights for passive ventilation in each individual room. A roof garden helps to insulate the main level study below, provides a garden off the master bedroom deck and separates this private space from the street. The thermally massive North wall of the residence has strategically placed openings for diffuse light and cool air, while the expanse of the entire mass wall acts as the anchor of the passive solar strategy.
The Nuss-Mashaal residence demonstrates the application of W3 Architects’ “two-story passive solar house” strategy, accommodates all the clients’ programmatic requirements and was completed within the specified budget.
On a private street in Santa Monica Canyon, the Perenchio Residence is a seamless addition of 2,000 square feet to an existing 3,000 square foot residence. The use of local creek stone for foundations, reclaimed wide plank oak flooring, natural clay plaster and SFC certified western red cedar shingles allows the home to complement its creekside site and simultaneously contributes to the warmth and sustainability of this green home.
The main house and guest quarters both utilize passive solar ventilation, heating and cooling strategies. A solar thermal water heating system provides all the energy required for the domestic hot water use, in-floor radiant back-up heating and the pool throughout the year.
The Perenchio Residence illustrates the reality that good sustainable design is not style dependent. W3 Architects is capable of integrating sustainability into projects with authenticity and character.
The Pildas/Green: Live-Work project was designed as a live/work space for an photographer/artist couple. This project reclaimed an abandoned parking lot and transformed it with dynamic, energy efficient architecture. The 1,300 square foot residence and 1,100 square foot studio are separated by a courtyard that features a drought tolerant cactus garden, which allows the couple to work from home while maintaining a separation between their home and work lives.
Instead of the main views facing outward, the two structures look inward, facing each other, thus increasing privacy from the adjacent alley and visual communication between the buildings. By shifting the Northwest corner of the residence towards the South, privacy is enhanced and alley views into the main living areas are decreased. This shift also intentionally creates the ideal solar condition for passive heating.
The stucco-clad residence contains a double-height space that facilitates the transfer of passive solar heat collected through a two-story glass wall. A 3-kilowatt photovoltaic solar electric system is installed on the studio roof, generating enough electrical power for 100% of the project’s needs. After one year of operating “net positive,” the project was taken off metering, and pays only a $30 annual grid-tie fee!
Terraplex is a three unit condominium development located 4 blocks from the beach in the Ocean Park neighborhood of Santa Monica. The project demonstrates the clear integration of passive solar, active solar and sustainable technologies into a dense urban housing proposal.
The project accepts the City street grid for the subterranean parking level but above makes a physical shift directly South, creating the required solar exposure for the integrated solar photovoltaic “power wall”, solar thermal water heating system, and optimizes each unit’s ability to heat, cool and power itself while expressing an intentional shift towards an architectural language based on the sun.
Warren’s first commission out of graduate school in 1989 was the original project here: The reworking of an existing 1400 square foot 1951 Ranch style house located in Santa Monica Canyon for two young art collectors. At that time the program included annexing 400 square feet of existing garage space and adding a new carport. The insertion of highly articulated and machined elements that opened up and activated the spaces of the house completely transformed the original residence.
23 years later, W3 Architects had the honor of being invited back by new owners to reconceive the house for a family with three young children. Completed in the fall of 2013, the residence now has bedrooms for the children plus a guest room on the ground level with the main living, dining and kitchen area. A 410 square foot master bedroom, bathroom, and closet were created on the new second level. The size, placement and configuration of the addition were tightly constrained by the siting of the original house at the base of a steep hillside tucked into a kink of the irregularly shaped lot, combined with the desire to avoid the use of any new visible structural elements. This upper level addition provides expansive views of the Canyon tree canopy while maintaining total privacy. The natural and organic materials convey a “rustic modernism” appropriate to the location.
The design intent was to expand the house for the functional requirements of a modern family while maintaining the character of the original building and restoring many of the elements created in the 1989 renovation. All of the utilities and systems were updated to drastically reduce the energy use of the house. The total square footage is now 2,518 and the house demonstrates a sustainable and intimately scaled design approach that allows for the family’s continued enjoyment now and for future generations.
