Los Angeles and Fort Lauderdale based design firm Brooks + Scarpa has completed a new typology for urban living near the beach on a small lot home in Manha an Beach, CA. Designed for a couple with three young children, this three-story compact house on a small compact 30’ x 90’ lot is located on a hillside walk street with direct access to the beach just a blocks away.
Project Name: SMALL LOT URBAN LIVING NEAR THE BEACH WITH THE ALMA SWITCH HOUSE
Studio Name: Brooks + Scarpa
Strict local ordinances and codes dictate maximum lot coverage, maximum height, minimum open exterior areas and a host of other restric ons that have resulted in typical repeated housing typologies in the area. As such, most buildings include large balconies pushed to the extreme exterior edges of the buildings to meet the code required open space, then the remaining interior lot area is filled solid with building mass, resul ng in bulky block-like structures full of perimeter balconies.
The Alma house design takes the exact opposite approach. By incorpora ng a mul-purpose
central courtyard in the middle of the site, all rooms within the house are able to have large amounts of glazing with operable windows allowing abundant natural light and air-flow from nearby ocean breezes to pass easily thru the home. This strategy also pushes the interior occupied spaces to the extreme outer edges of the property taking be er advantage of ocean and sunset views while breaking the massing of the structure into smaller more appropriately scaled forms.
From the central entry courtyard, the en re space from the small walk street garden to the living spaces above can be seen; the first clue of the home’s spa al connec on between inside and out. These spaces are designed for entertainment and the sliding glass doors throughout enhances the harmonic rela onship of the main rooms, allowing the owners to host many guests without the feeling of being overburdened.
The children can simultaneously play outdoors while under adult supervision from the rooms surrounding the courtyard. A custom anodized aluminum three-dimensional screen wall on the east side provided privacy to the spaces surrounding the courtyard from the busy street outside while that makes the facade shimmer as people pass by. Sunlight and bright lighting conditions make the façade go soft and silver in just a few seconds. It’s a quick-moving phenomenon that bends light and casts shadow depending on the time of day. These passive strategies alone make this building more than 40% more efficient than California Title 24 and a conven onally designed similar structure.
