International Architecture Awards Tell a friend

Architects: Arshia Architects
Design Team: Arshia Mahmoodi, Xinlei Li, Yuheng Huang, Fang Cui, Ruby Wu, and Zhishan Liu
General Contractor: Domaen Build Inc.
Client: 1254 Roberto Lane, LLC.
Photographers: Yu Heng Huang, Paul Vu, and Renee Parkhurst

Perched on a hilltop in the Bel Air neighborhood of Los Angeles, overlooking the Pacific Ocean and the Los Angeles basin, the project gently lands a dynamic building on top of a buried podium that replicates the natural topography that was once there before the area was subdivided for development. This hollow post-war neighborhood has been transforming gradually, overtaken by recent developments that rely on size rather than spatial quality. The concept set out to reduce the massing of a rather large project, for it to lodge within the neighborhood proportionally. It proposes an example of what can be offered within the confines of stringent regulations.

This project engages an exercise in spatial relationships to accelerate the programs of the house. It utilizes the split-level design to follow this topography of the hill and to connect the floor half-story plates. The plates form adjacencies, both visual and functional therefore allowing twice the utility of an otherwise dissected organization. The design was informed by streamlined automotive design, proposing every technology in the house to have discreet performance, allowing the sensory performance of the architectural space. A courtyard that is created by daylighting the lower bedrooms from the buried podium also acts as the rainwater runoff filtration system for the entire site. The project meets or exceeds stringent California green building and energy conservation standards such as low-flow plumbing systems, drought tolerant planting, rainwater filtration, photovoltaic integration, high-efficiency building envelope and glazing, HERS rating of the mechanical system, and more.