Project: Dwelling Unit – Geode ADU
Architects: IwamotoScott Architecture
IwamotoScott Principals: Lisa Iwamoto / Craig Scott
Project Team: Mia Zinni, Liam Cook, Mark Kurzawinski
Builder: Finbarr Collins and Pat Collins
Landscape Architect: Surfacedesign, Inc.
Location: Burlingame, California, United States
Area: 640 ft2
Year: 2023
Photographs: Bruce Damonte
Text by IwamotoScott Architecture
Geode ADU is a small (640 square feet) recently completed accessory dwelling unit that supplements and contrasts an existing mid-century modern Eichler house in Burlingame, CA. The client’s brief requested a design for a writing studio and guest unit, as a ‘place apart’ from the main house and also an inspiring work of architecture — both in its exterior form and materials, and in its interior spatial character. The design response evolved as a very particular three-dimensional form, with a polygonal plan and a section inflected to both slope and view.
Helping to further shape the design were an unusually-shaped lot with significant topography which impacts the buildable footprint; strict zoning constraints regarding setbacks, size and height; the client’s desire to maintain privacy from the street and neighboring properties; and a seemingly just out-of-reach easterly view toward the San Francisco Bay and beyond to the East Bay Hills, including Mount Diablo, on the opposite side of the existing Eichler house.
The resulting form reinterprets the butterfly roof — whereby one wing of the roof follows the adjacent slope to the west, while the other wing lifts a portion of the building off the ground, angled up toward the view to the East. When considered two-dimensionally, the butterfly roof can be seen as an inversion of the central gable of the existing Eichler house; but the more complex three-dimensional composition also suggests the ADU form can be understood as a positive projection of the negative space volume that is the atrium/courtyard at the center of the Eichler house.
Geode ADU creates both an enveloping wrapper around its highly tailored inward-focused space, and an extension out toward the Eichler’s rear yard patio. The resulting architectural form combines a certain sculptural autonomy with site-specificity, capitalizing on the spatial and experiential opportunities at hand.
Exterior finish materials include Shou Sugi Ban charred wood siding and stucco exterior cladding. Interior Finishes include polished concrete, oak flooring, walnut veneer paneling and casework, quartz countertop, conversion varnish cabinet faces at kitchen, and large format porcelain tile at bathroom.
