Project: aMa House
Architects: XTEN Architecture
Landscape Design: Studio MLA
Interior Design: James Buchan Design, Audrey Alberts Design
Contractor: HMJ Construction
Structural Engineer: Labib Funk + Associates
Location: Los Angeles, United States
Area: 6800 ft2
Year: 2020
Photographs: Art Gray Photography
Located above Sunset Boulevard in the hills of the Pacific Palisades, the aMa House is a custom home designed for a married couple and their art collection. The site is wrapped by a curving hillside street to the North, rising nearly thirty feet along the length of the property. To the South, the site opens up to views over Santa Monica Bay and the Pacific Ocean. The mass of the building follows the form of the street, beginning as a 2-story structure and gradually fully embedding itself into the hillside. This is expressed as a solid curved wall, embracing the site, creating privacy from the passing cars.
“We embraced the curve by designing a semi-circular façade that follows the form of the street,” explains Monika Haefelfinger, President of XTEN, “It was key in providing our clients with privacy from the elevated street which wraps around much of the property.” The curved wall flirts with the orthogonal design of the two-story main house, engaging with and then pulling away, creating pockets of exterior spaces in varying shapes and sizes: an entry garden, an outdoor living room, and an exterior dining area.
Working with Studio MLA, who provided the landscape design, these pockets became opportunities to integrate the garden within the architecture. “The art and the landscape really are the central focus of this space,” observes XTEN Principal Scott Utterstrom, “with the architecture yielding to them.” To take full advantage of the views from the site, the typical program of a house was inverted, allowing the main living spaces to reside on the upper floor while moving the bedrooms to the lower level, opening up to the pool and lower garden. A double-height space at the center of the house connects the upper and lower levels with a poured-in-place concrete stair.
Once inside the house, sliding glass walls open in every direction creating a sense of transparency and lightness. Natural daylight and air flow freely through the house, reducing the need for air conditioning or daytime lighting. The hillside naturally cools and insulates the lower level. These Passive Sustainable Strategies were combined with active strategies, including Photovoltaic panels and high-efficiency systems used throughout the residence.
A structural system of piers and volumes anchors the free-flowing spaces between the inside and outside. The walls shift in the plan, at times engaging the edge of the building and at times receding to the glass line. The circulation, layout, and structure of the house are orthogonal, but its relationship to the curved wall surrounding the house and the asymmetrical configuration of planes and volumes create a dynamic relationship between the house and the surrounding landscape.
