Project Description
Arch. Dome. Vault. The terms are relics of architectural history, but in
Southern California they are also the building blocks of suburbia,
where Mission-style McMansions flaunt endless stucco arches and vaulted
foyers. Principals Sharon Johnston, AIA, and Mark Lee of Los
Angeles–based Johnston Marklee, however, have updated the archaic and
used vaults to rethink a beach house in Oxnard, Calif., just north of
Malibu.
Designed for Steven and Jerri Nagelberg, a couple who split their time
between the shore and downtown L.A., Johnston Marklee’s scheme addresses
a typology common to beachfront communities: Narrow and deep houses sit
flank-to-flank along the sand, and while the living room and
second-floor master suite of each look onto the ocean, the rest of the
house is typically a dim warren.
“At the outset of the design, we asked ourselves how to bring light,
air, and a view all the way into the house,” Lee says. Rooms in Johnston
Marklee’s 3,600-square-foot scheme are organized so that one flows into
another, from the all-glass beachfront façade to the street, allowing
for glimpses of the Pacific throughout the house. The architects pushed
the second-floor master suite back from the waves—allowing the living
room to fill the whole front of the house—and carved out a courtyard
into the middle of the plan. The result is that every room has access to
the outdoors.
Vaulted ceilings of different sizes and curvatures define each room,
from the kitchen to the guest bedrooms. The office created a 6-foot-long
model in order to show the clients and the contractor how the curves
come together, but construction was straightforward; the vaults were
formed out of wood framing and dropped from the floor plate. “We are
interested in using simple geometries to create complex effect,” Lee
says. “We design in Rhino, but we could have designed the house using a
compass.” —Mimi Zieger