OPD House
Los Angeles, CA
2009
Located on a dead-end street that opens onto a panoramic view of the valley, the house sits on the upper portion of a sloping site facing a landscape of green hills illuminated by the unique Los Angeles light at sunset. The lush vegetation surrounding the house provides views of a subtropical garden with Mediterranean touches, giving the house its distinctive character.
The original house occupied the highest point of a 60-foot-wide by 90-foot-deep sloping lot. It consisted of a living room and dining room separated by a double-sided fireplace, one bedroom, one bathroom, and a kitchen. The structure was a simple “box” composed of five wooden modules with a sloped roof and an inclined glass rear façade perpendicular to the roof. This glass wall rested on a horizontal louvered “shelf” that provided cross-ventilation in combination with a high horizontal window on the opposite, street-facing side.
The renovation expanded the footprint of the existing structure to the maximum allowed by code, adding two additional structural modules to create a second bedroom and bathroom. Another key change was the removal of the louvered shelf, extending the inclined glass façade to the ground and introducing three low windows to preserve the cross-ventilation originally facilitated by the louvers. The rear glass façade now reads as a plane perpendicular to the sloping roof, visually independent from the vertical structural posts that support it, which establish a rhythmic order organizing the interior space.
The entrance to the house was redefined through the creation of a breezeway—an interior/exterior space between the house and the carport that opens to the street. These spaces form a Z-shaped plan defined by three walls of horizontal redwood planks separated by half-inch gaps, acting as visual filters and providing privacy for the upper outdoor patio. A redwood-slat roof defines the space of the breezeway and connects it visually to the upper courtyard, establishing a spatial sequence that begins at the street and culminates in the garden. The redwood planks enclosing the garage also frame and define the upper courtyard.
The garden’s retaining walls were reconfigured to create a larger main patio and a smaller lower patio—a more intimate space where a redwood cabin encloses an outdoor shower. The lower patio, surrounded by fruit trees, is connected to the upper patio by a circular stair framed by bougainvillea. Although the house measures only 960 square feet, it feels substantially larger. The breezeway and new patios add about 600 square feet of outdoor living space, while the rear glass façade—visually detached from the structure—extends the interior outward, creating a continuous spatial flow between inside and outside. The sequence of spaces, beginning at the breezeway and unfolding through the patios and garden to the lower terrace immersed in the surrounding landscape, generates a visual and spatial outdoor experience that plays as a counterpoint to the interior sequence of spaces of the house.
The original house occupied the highest point of a 60-foot-wide by 90-foot-deep sloping lot. It consisted of a living room and dining room separated by a double-sided fireplace, one bedroom, one bathroom, and a kitchen. The structure was a simple “box” composed of five wooden modules with a sloped roof and an inclined glass rear façade perpendicular to the roof. This glass wall rested on a horizontal louvered “shelf” that provided cross-ventilation in combination with a high horizontal window on the opposite, street-facing side.
The renovation expanded the footprint of the existing structure to the maximum allowed by code, adding two additional structural modules to create a second bedroom and bathroom. Another key change was the removal of the louvered shelf, extending the inclined glass façade to the ground and introducing three low windows to preserve the cross-ventilation originally facilitated by the louvers. The rear glass façade now reads as a plane perpendicular to the sloping roof, visually independent from the vertical structural posts that support it, which establish a rhythmic order organizing the interior space.
The entrance to the house was redefined through the creation of a breezeway—an interior/exterior space between the house and the carport that opens to the street. These spaces form a Z-shaped plan defined by three walls of horizontal redwood planks separated by half-inch gaps, acting as visual filters and providing privacy for the upper outdoor patio. A redwood-slat roof defines the space of the breezeway and connects it visually to the upper courtyard, establishing a spatial sequence that begins at the street and culminates in the garden. The redwood planks enclosing the garage also frame and define the upper courtyard.
The garden’s retaining walls were reconfigured to create a larger main patio and a smaller lower patio—a more intimate space where a redwood cabin encloses an outdoor shower. The lower patio, surrounded by fruit trees, is connected to the upper patio by a circular stair framed by bougainvillea. Although the house measures only 960 square feet, it feels substantially larger. The breezeway and new patios add about 600 square feet of outdoor living space, while the rear glass façade—visually detached from the structure—extends the interior outward, creating a continuous spatial flow between inside and outside. The sequence of spaces, beginning at the breezeway and unfolding through the patios and garden to the lower terrace immersed in the surrounding landscape, generates a visual and spatial outdoor experience that plays as a counterpoint to the interior sequence of spaces of the house.