Modern Santa Monica House | The King House | Santa Monica | California | John Friedman Alice Kimm Architects

The King House rejects the standard public front yard/private backyard typology, opting instead for a structure whose living spaces and bedrooms open onto a large garden and patio that faces the public streets and surrounding houses.

The house is a solid mass in which one corner has been carved away, revealing the house’s inner life, but where angled walls that respond to the site’s wedged shape also contribute a degree of privacy for the house’s bedrooms. Primarily composed of renewable materials such as plaster and cement board, the general permeability of the house is reinforced by its green and gray cement board painting pattern, designed to echo the dappled light one sees when looking through a tree towards a sun-filled sky......more

California Modern Home | The Holleb Residence | Santa Monica | California | John Friedman Alice Kimm Architects

The Holleb Residence is a 4,000 square foot home for a family of four in the Ocean Park neighborhood of Santa Monica. Its main organizing feature is a sculptural stair and second floor "cut-out" terrace that splits the house into front and back zones. On the ground floor, the structure's main entry separates the garage and guest room from the kitchen, dining, and living areas, which flow out into the back yard. On the second floor, the terrace and atrium provide privacy between the parents' suite and their children's bedroom and play areas, which overlook the play spaces in the rear.

The residence differs from the firm's other houses in its inclusion of many smaller spaces and rooms, all intended for specific uses by its inhabitants, but all held together by the circulation system and the centrally-located double-height living room......more

L.A Residence | Los Angeles | California | John Friedman Alice Kimm Architects

Silence: Surrounded by stately residences in a variety of historical styles, this 5,300 square foot single family residence responds with a deceptively simple composition of volumes, voids, and screens. The balanced muscularity of the street facade presents a contemporary response to the formality and classicism of the adjacent structures.

Outdoor Living: The L-shaped ground floor includes a kitchen/family room wing that extends into the backyard garden. Generously-sized terraces and large banks of sliding glass doors encourage year-round indoor-outdoor living.

Light and Space: The emphasis on simplicity continues inside the structure, which employs a free plan animated by a floating staircase located between the foyer and living room. Abundant use of natural light activates the interior spaces.

Reduced Palette: A reduced palette of light-colored materials (including exterior plaster walls, terrazzo floors, painted drywall, and quartz countertops) emphasizes the house’s natural light and free flowing spaces, as well as its simple, unfettered character. These materials are accented with wood siding, screens, and floors.....more

Ehrlich Residence Santa Monica | California | John Friedman Alice Kimm Architects

Green Opportunities: Designed for an entrepreneur seeking refuge from his unpredictable, nomadic life, this 3,500 square foot residence is one of the first houses to demonstrate that utilizing the full range of sustainability features is not only good for the environment, but also completely consistent with creating progressive, spatially rich environments.

Neighborliness: The same strategies that modulate the penetration of sun and air into the house (south-facing eaves, minimal western penetrations, etc.) also generate a dynamic layering of forms and planes that are appropriately scaled to the surrounding neighborhood. The choice of sustainable materials such as shiplapped cement board and plaster contributes to a respectful relationship with adjacent residences.

Diagonal Void: The internal masses of the house have been distributed to create a “diagonal void” that brings light and air deep into the house through both plan and section. It begins at a large, south-facing clerestory on the second floor that emits a warm glow at night. Carved from its center is a stair atrium that collects and vents hot air through motorized skylights in the roof. The unexpected void intensifies the abstract spatial qualities that are at the heart of the home’s aesthetic.

Blurring Boundaries: The structure’s siting and openness allow sunlight and breezes to naturally warm and cool the house, as well as to encourage the type of indoor-outdoor living made possible by Southern California’s temperate environment. (The house has no mechanical air conditioning system.) The koi pond cools the air before it enters the house. The concrete floors absorb heat during the day and release it at night.

See the Light: A generous use of skylights and clerestories reduces the need for artificial lighting. It also creates a combination of dynamic and reflected light that brings the owner’s art collection alive.

Unseen Beauty: The house employs the following active green technologies: Santa Monica’s first gray water system, which filters much of house’s waste water for use by the garden; a 4-kilowatt rooftop photovoltaic system that supplies 85% of the house’s power; and a highly efficient in-floor radiant heating system. Recycled or sustainably produced materials not already noted include: recycled cotton insulation; sustainably harvested wood stairs and floors; formaldehyde-free MDF cabinets; low VOC paint; and quartz countertops. The house has been the subject of several university lectures and is on the cover of Santa Monica’s influential “Residential Green Building Guide.”....more

King Residence | Santa Monica | California | John Friedman Alice Kimm Architects

Neighborliness: The King Residence rejects the standard public front yard/private backyard typology, opting instead for a structure whose living spaces and bedrooms open onto a relatively large garden and patio that faces the public streets and surrounding houses. While this arrangement puts much of the family’s communal and individual life on display, this is a positive feature for the Kings. The house’s blurring of public/private reinforces the sense of community that they embrace and encourage.

Siting and Massing: By setting the house towards the rear of the site, the house does not crowd the intersection. Read in a more volumetric way, the house is a solid mass in which one corner has been carved away, revealing the house’s inner life. But the structure can also be interpreted as series of planes, where angled walls that respond to the site’s wedged shape also contribute a degree of privacy for the house’s bedrooms. With a similar intent, the roof of the dining and “hangout” wing, angled to follow the gentle slope of the site, creates a sense of shelter for its inhabitants.

Materiality: Primarily composed of renewable materials such as plaster and cement board, the general permeability of the house is reinforced by its green and gray cement board painting pattern, designed to echo the dappled light one sees when looking through a tree towards a sun-filled sky. The wood screens, made of vertically-oriented Ipe, further help to dematerialize the structure’s opaque walls.

Light, Space, and Sustainability: Echoing the openness of the house to the neighborhood, the interior of the house is a series of free-flowing, continuous spaces that fosters a supportive, interactive family lifestyle. Generous use of skylights creates constantly changing light conditions that activate the interior. Extensive vertical glazing reduces the need for artificial lighting and enables ocean breezes to naturally ventilate the entire house, which does not include an air-conditioning system....more