The original home before our renovation and addition, was designed by Frank Lloyd Wright’s protégé, Aaron Green and built by Eichler Homes in 1966. In 1951, Frank Lloyd Wright hired Green as his West Coast representative, allowing him to continue his independent practice out of their joint office.
Our primary design charge became “First, do no harm.” This dictum, from Hippocrates’ 400 B.C.E. text “Of the Epidemics”, would prove ironic given the timing of the global pandemic and its impact on the project’s cost and schedule. Our challenge was to protect the design integrity of the home while adding a substantial amount of space to make the home viable for a young family with three children.
The home was virtually untouched by the original owners and included custom furniture pieces salvaged and integrated into the new design. The house is tucked back from the road on a flag lot surrounded by more traditional suburban homes. The original home was 1,590 SF with three bedrooms and two baths on a third of an acre lot. We added 1,512 SF for a total of 3,102 SF. When we first met on site, we discussed the importance of respecting the integrity of the original home and landscape, which featured a landscaped swale running along the center of the site –a distinctive added topography for the small site and essential, we would soon find out, given the high-water table of the property.
Given the spider-like sculptural roof and scuppers of the original, the home already was a complete thought, with no obvious solution of how to add to the composition, let alone double the interior square footage. Our first design move was to head off the existing downward sloping roof beams mid-span and add a small rear addition along the entire length of the house under a new upward-sloping roof. This opened the dark kitchen and bedrooms with a new higher ceiling while continuing the rhythm of the existing structure and creating a niche for hidden cove lighting where the original beams once ran.
In addition, since the existing carport and scupper was too low for many modern family cars and no longer met local code for covered parking, we raised the roofline and scupper at the front to create a new carport while also converting a portion of that area into a new sunken family room, consistent with the mid-century vibe of the original.
Finally, we added a prime bedroom suite tucked behind a new board-formed concrete wall. Taking inspiration from the home’s existing concrete block walls, our addition peeks out behind the new wall –referential but deferential. Despite the addition’s deference, we wanted the roof to have its own distinct character, with the lightness of the clerestory windows balancing the heaviness of the original roofline. Whenever possible, views through the space frame the iconic roof scuppers as they touch down to the ground. The design strategy is to let our modern interventions shine but with the mindset of “What would Mr Green do?”
The core tenet of the project design is to create a seamless connection of the occupants to the natural environment. It achieves this by creating a high-quality indoor environment with multiple direct access points to communal outdoor spaces. The project utilizes overhangs to shade large expanses of glass promoting a comfortable indoor environment and shaded outdoor areas.
Water conservation was also a critical aspect of the project design. In addition to specifying low water use plumbing fixtures and appliances, the project takes several additional measures. The design incorporates low water use landscaping, watered with a drip irrigation system. The onsite greywater catchment provides 75% of the required irrigation with recycled water. Furthermore, stormwater is managed onsite and directed to a 100-foot-long meandering vegetated swale. This not only creates additional habitat but also dissipates the flow such that it can be absorbed back into the soil on site, diverting it from the municipal stormwater system.
The project design incorporates several energy saving strategies. First, the building envelope was significantly improved from the original 1965 home. The single pane glass window wall in the living area was meticulously reconstructed using double pane, low-e glass. Deep overhangs on the South and East protect the glazing from direct solar heat gain. This significant glazed rea allows for daylighting of the primary living spaces, minimizing the need for electrical lighting. Additionally, a roof mounted solar PV array generates enough on-site energy to offset 100% of the building’s energy demands, with battery storage capacity for several days.
Additionally, with the project site being in California, there was a specific effort to mitigate the impact of wildfire smoke. An HRV (Heat Recovery Ventilation) system provides a constant supply of MERV-13 filtered fresh air, when the occupants can’t rely on natural ventilation. The primary living situated along a glass wall, daylighting a large portion of the home. All the sleeping areas are designed for natural ventilation, with multiple operable windows. The project took care to specify a natural wool carpet, free of toxic adhesives.
At a base level, rather than demolishing the original home, the project preserves much of the original structure, blending new spaces into the original design. The sensitive restoration of the original 1965 roof structure and CMU walls not only preserves the original architectural intent but significantly reduces material waste. When specifying new materials, recycled content was incorporated whenever possible. For example, the concrete floor tile throughout the home uses 80% recycled content, and the cork flooring in the sleeping areas is a rapidly renewable resource made of recycled content.
Lastly, with climate change in mind, the project has been designed for passive survivability. The home is ‘off grid’, generating enough on-site electricity and deploying a battery storage system sufficient to operate for several days without power. In addition to the HRV fresh air and filtration system mitigating the impacts of extreme heat and wildfire smoke, this should help occupants to stay safe in times of severe weather, grid instability and natural disasters.