Project: Tramonto Residence
Architects: ShubinDonaldson / Russell Shubin, AIA, LEED AP, Robin Donaldson
Project Team: Bradford Kelley
Contractor: Winters+Schram Associates
Location: Pacific Palisades, California, USA
Area: 17,500 SF
Year: 2019
Photo Credits: Fernando Guerra, Roger Davies
Text by ShubinDonaldson
Awards: Tramonto Residence wins 2020 Architectural Lighting Design Awards
Nestled in the Pacific Palisades foothills, the Tramonto Residence is a contemporary single-family home which integrates the natural beauty of an adjacent state park. The placement of the home captures vistas overlooking the canyon, the surrounding Santa Monica Mountains, and the California coastline meeting the Pacific Ocean.
The diffusion of the built form defines the approach for this 17,000 sqft home into the surrounding landscape. The two-acre site embraces steep topography and contends with the context to inform the building’s siting and orientation. Each portion of the home is terraced into the natural contours of the hillside, breaking up the overall building mass while using its sub-grade structure to reinforce the hillside.
The program consists of two principal masses terracing with the natural contours of the site defined by a limited material palette of limestone, high-performance glazing, and dark ipe wood. Tramonto’s design appropriates two open terraces, one outward semi-public and another inward and private.
A feature stair triangulates the circulation around a reflecting pool leading to a mezzanine and bridge mirroring the sculpted assembly and balancing the dialogue with the building’s geometry.
Tramonto Residence negotiates the challenging topography through defined massing and a natural, elegant material palette. The design of the residence exemplifies the principles of indoor/outdoor living afforded by embracing the temperate climate and natural beauty of the landscape and surrounding coastal bluffs.
