North Hollywood Hill Houses, Los Angeles, california
The architect was tasked to design two side-by-side residence on two uphill lots in the North Hollywood Hills, Los Angeles, CA. The two houses meet all Zoning and were approved unanimously by all Neighborhood groups and by the Los Angeles Building Department for construction. The houses also meet the rigorous fire resistant code requirements for Wildland Urban Interface (WUI) areas which have high to severe exposure to wild fires.
The site has a very large existing concrete retaining wall that bisected both parcels behind the future houses. The Architect decided that New Mexico Cliff dwellings would be an appropriate point of departure. The concrete wall is stained in various reddish browns as are the new houses.
The house designs were inspired by work of Richard Neutra and the by Rudolph Schindler, whose works are found in Los Angeles and yet cast with a warm rough Spanish stucco and rough wood patina.
The houses are vertical towers of warm reddish brown stucco. The “Schlindler”— the light tan house—sports an expressive array of vertical stained red cedar louvers that act as privacy screens and trellis and form a 3-story stained red cedar “waterfall”.
The “Neutra”—the reddish brown house—has a series of decks and walkways with steel detailing that recalls the steel detailing and box-like forms of Neutra designs.
The “white model” interiors capture the dramatic hillside and views beyond toward the south.