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ERIC OWEN MOSS

The Petal House

West Los Angeles

The existing 1100 square foot house was a conventional two storey, wood frame tract house in the flatlands of West Los Angeles. The expansion, according to the owner's program, had to include a new master suite and bath, a new kitchen, increased living room space and a new studio and guest quarters.

A careful effort was made to understand and extend the essential qualities of both the existing house and immediate neighborhood.

Special attention was paid to the roof forms, the area's dominant formal feature.

Typical shed roof forms are reiterated in the kitchen, living room/porch and guest house extensions. The exception is the second storey and roof deck where the four leaves of an erstwhile pyramid roof are "opened" at varying angles, providing a variety of roof-top amenities and a counterpoint to the tract vocabulary below.

The deck's four triangular walls are pitched four ways from a theoretical central apex. The "leaves" are "opened up" and separated, providing both a measure of privacy between the walls, and views to Westwood, Century City and the freeway from the corners.

The second floor was built over the existing roof which allowed the occupants to remain in the house during construction. The stud and "cripple" wall between existing roof and new second floor is expressed as a distinct element on the exterior by reversing the traditional position of plywood and studs. This maintains the structurally essential shear wall continuity from first floor to second as well as defining architecturally the transition from old to new.

The design strategy on the ground floor was to define the point of entry; four piers capped by an inverted, electrically illuminated translucent dome skylight. The living room with new porch was extended toward the street creating a symmetrical entry elevation, balancing old and new around the front door. The porch is enclosed with #6 re-bars spaced at 9 inches horizontally, reiterating the wood siding joints of the existing house, and attempting to confound the neighborhood problem with burglars. Diamond patterned aluminum windows in the addition are also an effort to prevent forced entry. Two corrugated, translucent fiberglass panels on the porch side mirror the two windows in the existing wing opposite the entry, again reinforcing the relation between old and new.

Major finish exterior materials are painted wood siding and composition shingles, modified reiterations of existing house and neighborhood conditions. The owner's programmatic requirements have been met. The character and materials of existing house and neighborhood have been acknowledged and extended. The second story roof form, however, confirms that issues of context are not handled religiously. The dogmatically acknowledged, has its limits.