n a g a s a k i .
s c h u b e r t
h o u s e
l o s
a n g e l e s.
c a l i fo r n i a
satellite image 100%
Los Angeles, CA 2002
satellite image 400%
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satellite image 700%
thomas guide
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generalized land use, north Venice
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north Venice 100%
north Venice 300%
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360° View, Venice Beach
the site is located at 2805 Ocean Front Walk, directly at Venice Beach. The site is one of the most popular locations in Los Angeles, because of its great view onto the Pacific Ocean and its vicinity to public life, leisure and shopping facilities. Venice is also the attraction point for alternative living, arts, tourists, street-entertainment and public display of urban life. The Venice canals are a few blocks inland and invite for a walk in a “Venice”-like urban environment. The Washington Blvd. is relatively fast close to the 405 or 10 Freeway. The Ocean front walk is also known as the ”architect’s row”, because of its wide range of architectural styles and features. One of the most important things in this area is its psychological system: The Venice Beach area is a melting pot of visitors, locals and entertainers. Here all kinds of people come togethere, by foot, bike or rollerblade. You will meet the movie star next to as the homeless person. A great variety of restaurants, stores, art exhibitons and sport facilities offer anything one can dream of. For the fortunate owner of one of these sites, there is a fine line between presenting him to the public as being an “actor on the Venice Beach stage of life” and keeping his privacy. This was one of my main goals to develope a balanced design between private and public for the nagasaki schubert house.
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Ocean Front Walk
Speedway Avenue + Washington Blvd.
28th Block
architectural style :
27th Block
Ocean Front Walk offers a wide variety of architectural styles and features. Even though each site has the same footprint, there is a the whole spectrum of different solutions.
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# 2517 ocean front
# 2619
# 2513
# 2705
# 2709 ocean front
# 2712
# 2608
# 2601
site features : The site is a long narrow lot (28 ’ x 90 ’), facing the ocean with its short side. At the front you have the Ocean Front Walk with a high freqency of pedestrians and in the back a supply alley, the Speedway Avenue. The site is cleary directed towards the ocean. The current building design concentrates on the ocean side, treating the Speedway alley as a kind of “backstage area”. Problems are occuring in receiving natural light in the lower levels of the buildings. Narrow fire regulation walkways between 2-3 level buildings, connecting the alley to the front, are often dark and treated as abandoned and unattractive spaces. The parking spaces and entrance can be accessed from Speedway Ave..
view along Ocean Front Walk
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view from the beach
view from Speedway Avenue
site direction : situated directly at the ocean front, the site has a physical and psychological direction towards the ocean.
building code : - 30 feet maximum building height - 3 feet fire distance to next site - 15 feet offset from center of alley - 3 parking spaces (one tandem) - 1 foot offset from ocean front walk
natural lighting : A courtyard is cut into the center of the building to let light into the lower levels of the volume.
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fire walkway solution : the building code requires a 3 foot fire regulation walkway for two story buildings to the adjacent sites. 1 foot is supposed to be added for each additional level. Architects are using a trick to built 3 levels while keeping only 3 foot distance, by raising up the fire walkway one level leaving only 2 storeys above this artificial ground floor. Using this common feature I am widening this staircase to become a broad impressive entrance still keeping the pathway to the Ocean Front Walk. This one storey high base is also going to house the pool and the bachelor apartment. The actual privat house is going to float above this base as an independent, now 2 storey entity. The disadvantage of the dark, wasted firewalkway space is turned into a positive feature, creating an impressive entry situation still following the building code.
T - shape :
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consists of the maximized volume minus three parking spaces and a ground floor apartment.
privacy concept : The building is divided into three levels of privacy: the Public level, the semi public level and the privat level. The design creates a gradient of public space on the ground floor to absolut privacy in the master bedroom on the second floor. - The ground level is designed to be open to the public, for the parking lot, entrance and the bachelor apartment. - The second level is designed as a semi privat zone, for guests, to represent, exhibit and for everyday live. The elevated height does not allow direct insight from Ocean Front Walk. - The third level is the most privat area and hosts the privat children rooms and the privat parent zone.
reflected environment : The front of the building reflects the light, warm, bright and windy athmosphere of the beach. A sail curtain floating in the wind creates the notion of lightness and openess. The curtain serves also to its main purpose, the protection of privacy and shade. The backside of the building is attractive but not inviting. It creates a kind of cold shield towards the public world. Very bright halogen lights are shining from the ceiling of the parking spaces.
psychological and physical privacy :
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The master bedroom is the most privat space in a house. Even though the bedroom is situated at the most public side of the building, being necessary for being also the most attractive side, it still is the hardest place to reach inside the house. The unfolded motion path shows how deep you have to go into the volume, until you will reach its most sacret space. The path moves through different levels of privacy. even crossing a final bridge to get to the privat parent zone.
climate control : The main entrance loft is used as a chimney: warm air rises up and leaves the building through the roof. The wind from the sea will creating an underpressure above the house increases the air exchange.
view from north west
glassed entrance loft
roof deck
office
curtain sail
balcony
bamboo
apartment view from south west pool
frosted glass block
ocean front walk
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view from south west
bridge
skylights
roof deck
translucent glass
main entrance
textured concrete
entrance stair view from south east operable panel on glass loft
parking
speedway ave.
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view along Ocean Front Walk
view from Speedway avenue
view from ocean front walk : Looking down along the ocean front walk, no building is stands out of the mass. The idea to have something tilting out into the walkway, to be a recognizable feature and stand out of the standard building cut line, emerged early. Something that gives the building an attractive edge, that makes it visible and recognizable from a distance. A spacial feature that makes this specific building unique. A sign, a commercial, creating an event to the visitor of venice beach. The idea was to create an event that at the same time keeps a certain level of privacy, resulted in an interactive object, which would block unwanted insights, but which would reflect the environment of the beach, the wind and the sun. This was materialized as something simple as a very light curtain sail floating freely in the wind, a well visible sign along the ocean front walk and an event that would make people turn their head. The second feature is the swimming pool. A pool is something very difficult to achive in this site condition and hardly any building managed to incorporate it into its design. This pool is located directly at the oceanfront side and is closed off by a 6 foot tall, 6 inch wide frosted, tempered glass block. The tranclucent glass will block insights into the pool, but will act as a screen for the water line and the sun reflections. The water line will be above the typical pedestrian head level. Walking on the Ocean Front Walk you will find yourself in front of a 30000 liter block of blue clear water. Only kept in place by a translucent piece of glass. Looking up you might see the rough outline of someone swiming above your head.
view from Venice Beach
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north elevation
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south elevation
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east elevation
west elevation
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ground floor ( apartment )
ground floor ( entrance )
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first floor
second floor
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roof deck
section
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view from entrance to livingroom (6.00 pm)
“ . . . this is my favourite place in our house. The sun comes to visite me here everyday before she goes to sleep in the ocean . . . “
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view from entrance to livingroom (2.00 am)
“ I was waking up at night from an unpleasent dream, so I went down to the kitchen to get myself some milk. The house was so calm. Standing inside the warm light cone of the open refrigerator door, drinking my cold milk, I noticed how the reflections from the pool were sparkling and dancing through our living room . . . “
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view from beach (10.00 pm)
The pool will be lit at night, so that the whole volume appears as one light object. Caustic reflections and dancing light rays will be projected into the night sky, the translucent glass walls and the ceiling of the living room. Above the curtain will float smoothly in the wind.
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The back of the building is not supposed to be attractive or inviting. It is supposed to look like a cold, deflecting object only inviting those who are welcome. Very bright, cold halogen lights are replacing fences and guards. Standing in a bright lit environment at night, without a fence is more save than being behind a fence in the dark. The cars are displayed in the light and protected at the same time. You will enter the parking lot as if you are driving into an overexposed, light flooded aircraft hangar. Printed parking marks and walkways, are grafically deviding the space.
view from Speedway avenue (10.00 pm)
plaster
interior wood finish
gravel ground at front of apartment
pool
view
tatami room
The materials are one of the most important features of the design. Like in a painting I am trying to use only 3 colors and their gradients. The materials will be simple and pretty for what they are. As the building becomes more privat, the materials are changing into more warm, natural surfaces like the wood or the tatami floors. The more public areas will be kept in cold materials like steel, plaster, concrete and glass. The beauty of the space will be created by the gradients of shades and lights.
bamboo at front of apartment
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tranclucency + reflection entrance
area calculation :
/ 275.5 m2
gound floor
2480 sqf.
parking - parking storage room
886 sqm. / 98.4 m2 98 sqf. / 10.5 m
bachelor apartment
615 sqm.
/ 68.3 m2
- kitchen - bathroom - storage - living room + entry
86 sqm. 60 sqm. 39 sqm. 429 sqm.
/ 9.6 m2 / 6.7 m2 / 4.3 m2 / 47.7 m2
first floor
1400 sqf.
/ 155.6 m2
entrance courtyard exterior balconies pool
160 sqf. 100 sqf. 192 sqf.
/ 17.7 m2 / 11.1 m2 / 21.3 m2
- entrance loft - living room - dining room - kitchen - tatami room - guest bath room
181 sqf. 400 sqf. 138 sqf. 114 sqf. 195 sqf. 46 sqf.
/ 21.1 m2 / 44.4 m2 / 15.3 m2 / 12.6 m2 / 21.6 m2 / 5.1 m2
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second floor
1241 sqf.
/ 137.9 m2
parent zone
528 sqf.
/ 58.6 m2
- bathroom - office - bedroom
94 sqf. 96 sqf. 236 sqf.
/ 10.4 m2 / 10.7 m2 / 26.2 m2
children zone
648 sqf.
/ 72 m2
- 1. child room - 2. child room - storage - bath - bridge
195 sqf. 198 sqf. 51 sqf. 46 sqf. 176 sqf.
/ 21.6 m2 / 22 m2 / 5.7 m2 / 5.1 m2 / 19.5 m2
roof deck
556 sqf.
/ 61.7 m2
cd. rom
n a g a s a k i .
s c h u b e r t
h o u s e
l o s
a n g e l e s.
c a l i fo r n i a