Designed by Rios Clementi Hale Studios, this beautiful modern house is located in Venice, CA, USA. Originally built in 1920s (at 600 square feet) and renovated by husband-and-wife architects in 1996 with second-floor addition, the house grew again in 2012 with the addition of a second lot, reconfiguration of public and private areas, and new garage and master suite. The resulting home now revolves around indoor/outdoor connections to the vast patio space with decorative and working gardens. The front volume maintains a refined lap siding as a signal to the house’s bungalow origins with a scale appropriate for the walk street, while the expressive back volume sports exaggerated vertical wood framing as sunshades to the glass master bedroom volume. “A house and its antithesis,” is how the architects/homeowners describe the relationship between the two elements. Public areas on the ground floor flow into each other and toward the outdoors. A new large sliding-glass door opens the lower level out to the generous plaza formed from linear concrete slabs with grass and pebbles interspersed. No-mow grass surrounds the front elevated entry porch, which begins the consistent black concrete-tile flooring that travels from outside through the first-floor living, dining, and kitchen areas, then back outside to the al fresco dining platform.

 

Photographs: Undine Pröhl

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