Pioneertown, California, was originally built in the 1940s as a live-in motion-picture set for actors. Now, it's much more a pilgrimage scene for Angelenos. The seemingly alien Mohave landscape makes a foreign counterpart to LA's urban culture. The particular site for this house is a 5-acre boulder parcel owned by a West Hollywood art-dealing couple who want a little weekend spot with an artist studio. There is an existing homestead masonry cabin on the property built in the 1950s. Only 20ft square(ish), this humble original acts as the primitive origin for the clients' weekend outings. The design is a house around this house. Its organization takes queues from the landscape. But rather than piles of boulders (objects) it experiments with piles of rooms (voids). It plays with a pilgrimage for these domestic types: rooms, courts, closets, counters, bookcases, beds... All pile and gather around the homestead. The separation and movement between them is common ground with the landscape. Each relates to the natural in very particular ways. Orientation, material, proximity.... The most private space abuts a large boulder formation. A large u-shaped forecourt opens to the sky and separates car port from residence. Both the forecourt and the original homestead emphasize a vertical relationship with the site. The living areas, bedroom, and kitchen maintain quasi-cardinal horizontal relations. Some doubles emerge among favorite parts. The homestead's doppelganger is the bedroom. It's made from the excavated ground below the original homestead. The forecourt's vanity, evident in a highly polished surface, mirrors itself into the landscape. The studio is a phantom-limb --a member partly lost- its presence as double is maintained through distance. Influences and points of departure include: Hejduks House 1, Kahn's Fischer house, and his Domincan-Motherhouse-plan-struggle in the late 60s.
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