Location: Los Angeles, California Date: 2002-2004 Type: residential Firm: SPF:architects Role: Project Designer [Ed Ogosta] Awards: AIA LA Design Merit Award 2007; AIA California Council Merit Award 2005 Publications: Living West: New Residential Architecture in Southern California, 2009; Los Angeles Times, 01.05.2006; Interior Design, 08.2005
The client for the Blue Jay Way Residence presented a provocative architectural challenge: take a mediocre, owner-designed house from the late 1980s, gut the interiors, reconfigure the elevations, and nearly double the square footage—all while remaining within the original building volume and under a strict budget. Our solution was to carefully dissect the original building and strategically amputate extraneous elements. Acceptance of existing structure permitted the redirection of funds to large sheets of operable glass and deep window openings which frame a variety of views. Incisions through the floor slabs created a vertical void, thus providing further spatial integration in section. The result of such extensive surgery is a building more open to its site, and ultimately more accommodating to the client’s patterns of living.
