A Los Angeles hillside retreat for New York-based fashion magazine publishers began life as an intensely ordinary shell. One of a mirrored pair of spec homes, abandoned by
its developer and completed by the bank, the existing building was a study in conventional spaces and banal finishes, haphazardly placed. We undertook a comprehensive renovation project to insert an entirely new sensibility into a mute host. The completed project is an
interior landscape extending visual continuity between environments, establishing locations for entertaining and conversation, and reconfiguring apertures to frame canyon views. The palette of vibrant colors and synthetic,
luminescent materials shifts as light conditions change. Contrasting with the expanse of nature
surrounding the residence, an uncanny alignment nonetheless occurs during infamously colorful Angeleno twilights and dawns. New skins remake the presence of a previously inconsequential street façade. Responding to the box-like quality of the building shell, surfaces are detailed to appear
stretched taut, presenting an intriguing thinness upon which openings are scrimshawed.
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