5XY N. Roxbury Dr. residence

The house is set back to the side and rear of a corner lot. The linear plan allows each space to open to the interior courtyard. Use of concrete, glass, glass block and painted steel recalls an early twentieth century modernist vocabulary. One example is Maison Verre by Pierre Chareau in Paris and the Bauhaus style in Dessau, Germany. These ideas were adapted in Southern California by Richard Neutra in the years following World War 1.

In this residence, the concrete front wall acts as a privacy screen to the street traffic of the very busy intersection. The front wall continues to the edge of the property and completes the enclosure of the side and rear for continued privacy. Behind the wall, the interior spaces face the courtyard and the wall dissolves into continuous glazed openings. The front main bedroom is one and a half stories tall and helps step the forms from the perimeter wall to the second floor bedroom block.

The intersection of the side and rear spaces is expressed by a literal hinge space: a semicircular space enclosed by segmented glass that creates an informal breakfast nook overlooking the courtyard.

Adjacent to the ‘hinge’ there is a niche housing a large backlit art piece by Robert Rauschenberg. This installation is on axis with the gallery space leading back to the 2 story front entry. There is a skylight at the front entry ceiling and, hanging from the center of the skylight a kinetic sculpture called ‘The Ruby Cube’ by Jonathan Borofsky.

Space, light and materials are combined with contemporary artwork.