Alan Voo House / Neil M. Denari Architects
Architects: Neil M. Denari Architects
Location: Los Angeles, CA, USA
Project Team: Neil Denari and Duks Koschitz with Joe Willendra
Program: 2,000 sf conversion of residence
Client: Eric Alan and Rhonda Voo
Budget: US $700,000
Project year: 2007
Photographs: Benny Chan of Fotoworks
The clients for this house renovation / extension, a couple with three daughters, are a creative, democratic unit. The father directs film trailers, the mother is a graphic designer and illustrator, while the high school / middle school / elementary school aged daughters are all immersed in their own versions of their parents visual cultures. The family have asked that 1,000 sf be added to the site in addition to the existing 1,000 sf house.
The scheme leaves half of the house for the daughter’s bedrooms and incorporates the other half plus new extensions in front and back into a public zone and a private bedroom for the parents. This strategy amounts to a new 16 ft wide linear house being inserted into the existing house. Multi-toned, bright colors accentuate the new pieces which suggest a graphic expression representative of the family’s interests.
- ground floor plan
- lower floor plan
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32 comments »
boring…
Nice Science lab
kind of disgustin.
How is that boring? It’s like some of the drawings from Gyroscopic Horizons brought to life. Thanks ArchDaily for high res shots and architectural drawings – it is always great when you include those, not only to see the substance of the project but also the style of drawing used by the architectural team.
nice design cool
Having visited the project, I have to say it is a well crafted addition.
As a design, however, the project seems to relish in so many contemporary industrial design cliches to the point of fetishism. Like his previous obsession with 19th century dead technology (the Tokyo International Forum), his more recent obsessions with 21st “sharper image” design continues to give preference to style over any meaningful architectural (or technological) innovation.
^NMiller
WELL SAID
Agreed. This project makes me think of the Jetsons… a futuristic almost art deco throwback but not in a good way.
Just my opinion, but I would much prefer scraping away all the “Space 1999″ styling, and just leave a two-story glass box.
Hans Scharoun’s???
i would say this is interesting.
I like the facade !!! nice intersection of volumes !!
Great to see a built project by Neil Denari
actualy the tree beside the house has an interesting shape … better than the house , if you can call a house or a home … but I guess this is personal .
I think NMiller is seeing this project through the unflattering lens of Denari’s most egregious stylistic inventions. What distinguishes this project from Denari’s long (overlong) portfolio of eyecatching but rather empty paper projects is the deft way he integrates such an unusual addition into a typical suburban house. It makes the familiar strange, while still working quite well with the existing plan and site. And it does indeed have some very nice interior spaces, aided but not created by his usual vocabulary of plastic surfaces. That picture of the stair turning the corner below the skylight is pretty convincing to me. I’d like to hang out there. I think maybe Denari needs the friction of real-world conditions like this (or like the crazy constraints imposed on the Highline condo tower he designed) to make his designs really work.
I agree with Paul, and appreciate how the home is resolutely contemporary but refuses easy categorization as geometric or curvilinear, monolithic or transparent.
Its obvious you all are architecture students, emphasis on students… That is a nice addition to the house. It is designed to what the client wanted and built very well. Curves and angles like that are never an easy job to take on. I applaud the firm for a job well done.
IL FAUT QUE NOUS UTILISONS DES FORMES CREATIVES!
Hmm… debate about the architecture aside.. that cost $700,000!? Is that just for the addition?
Very nice design only for people who can appriciate this kind of architecture
like it a lot!
Siza Man?!?!? :| With that posture of life, is easy to understand that you feel it “boring” …
what a sweet little thing
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