Woods + Dangaran creates Desert Palisades house for rocky site in Palm Springs

Patinated brass panels and extra-clear glass form the facades of a weekend dwelling designed by Woods + Dangaran for a boulder-strewn site in southern California.

The Desert Palisades home – located in a gated community of the same name in Palm Springs – serves as a family weekend retreat for designer Brett Woods, who leads Woods + Dangaran with architect Joseph Dangaran. Their studio is based in Los Angeles.

A glazed corridor links the two parts of the Desert Palisades home

The dwelling sits on a rocky hillside offering views of the mountains and the city below.

The desert context and keeping the terrain intact were key considerations for the design team. Woods also wanted a house that departed from the mid-century modern style that is so ubiquitous in Palm Springs.

Interiors were crafted from a "muted palette"

"Our vision for the home was very much antithetical to the typical tropes of mid-century modernist style that so defines the iconic Palm Spring aesthetic, and this informed the development of the palette and materiality," the studio said.

L-shaped in plan, the single-storey home consists of two volumes that total 3,800 square feet (353 square metres).

Furnishings intend to tie the home to its natural surroundings

The main volume, which looks east toward the city, is a rectangular bar that holds the public zone and primary sleeping areas. It is gently lifted above the ground to preserve a pair of arroyos that run through the property.

"As the site begins to slope away to the east, the building delicately lifts off grade and spans the natural terrain and arroyos," the team said, noting that this kept draining channels in place.

A swimming pool was built into the terrace

Behind the main bar is a "west wing" containing a garage and guest house.

A glazed corridor links the two parts of the home, and bridges the arroyos and a cacti garden. Metal trellises extend outward from the glass enclosure, offering shade and producing an interesting play of light and shadow.

A rectangular volume includes sleeping areas

The home's facades are wrapped in patinated brass panels that will continue to weather over time. Flanking the ends of the main bar are piers made of concrete masonry units (CMUs), which help anchor the home to the site.

The exterior also features generous stretches of low-iron glass, known for its high transparency.

Woods + Dangaran perched the house on a boulder-strewn site

In the rear, 12-foot-deep (3.7-metre) overhangs help protect the building and also visually unify its different components. The backyard features a swimming pool and terrace.

Within the dwelling, one finds a straightforward layout. One side of the bar holds the sleeping areas, while the other contains an open-concept space for cooking, dining and lounging.

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Similar to the exterior, the interior design takes cues from the desert landscape.

Sage green, dusty pinks and sandy browns form a "muted palette that seems to blend in with the terrain", the team said.

Mountainous surroundings are reflected in extra-clear glass windows

Finishes include travertine flooring and walls made of exposed CMU blocks. For the furnishings, the team used earthy materials such as walnut, teak, leather and stone to help tie the home to its natural setting.

Crisp views of the landscape are provided by the home's low-iron glass windows. Along the front of the house, rooms are lined with gauzy, floor-to-ceiling curtains that, in addition to offering privacy, add a soft touch to the interior.

"For the interiors, it was particularly important to cultivate a feeling of comfort and cosiness," the team said.

The home is clad in patinated brass panels that will weather over time

Other projects by Woods + Dangaran include the sensitive renovation of a mid-century residence in Los Angeles that was originally designed by Craig Ellwood.

The photography is byJoe Fletcher.

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Project credits:

Architecture and interior design: Woods + Dangaran

Landscape architect: Chris Sosa

Renderings: Squared Design Lab

General contractor: HJH Construction

Lighting design: Woods + Dangaran

Soils engineer: Landmark Consultants

Structural engineer: Labib Funk + Associates

Civil engineer: Labib Funk + Associates

Fire sprinklers: AFP Systems

Plumbing engineer: California Energy Designs

Title 24: Solargy

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Mesh canopy shades California desert retreat by Kovac Design Studio

Guest suites cluster around an expansive living area at this California mansion, which Kovac Design Studio designed to emulate a boutique hotel.

The Madison Desert Club residence is named after the exclusive golf club where the 9,220-square-foot (856-square-metre) home is located in La Quinta, California, near Palm Springs.

Kovac Design Studio built the project on a golf course

"Inspired by the concept of a boutique hotel, the project sought to take maximum advantage of the dramatic desert views and, through its interior design, pay homage to the Golden Hollywood era of nearby Palm Springs," said Kovac Design Studio, an architecture firm based in Los Angeles.

The home's boxy massing is arranged around a central, double-height volume that contains the kitchen, dining area, and plenty of lounge space.

The Madison Desert Club is designed to resemble a boutique hotel

Overlooking the living room is a mezzanine and catwalk that can be used as a DJ platform, according to the architects.

The entrance to the home brings visitors past a reflecting pool, under a mesh-like canopy that shades the front door. "Upon arrival, one circles into the motor court and is greeted by a still dark water element that seems to rise from the ground, water shimmering down its sides," said the architects.

Light fills the home through large openings

This canopy spans the entire home, shading areas between the main central volume and five additional wings scattered around it.

"The overhang, ideal for providing shade on hot desert days, connects the main living space to six surrounding casitas, ideal for guests, and casts a pattern of delicate shadows that changes with the day’s spectrum of light," said Kovac Design Studio.

A glass wall with motorised panels looks onto the golf course

At the back of the large entertaining area, a glass wall with motorised panels can slide open, revealing vistas of the surrounding golf course and mountains beyond.

Of the five ancillary volumes, four contain guest suites – two with a single bedroom, and another two with a pair of rooms each – while the fifth is used as the home's garage.

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Kovac Design Studio included plenty of amenities in the guest rooms. Each has its own ensuite bathroom, private terrace and fire pit, and other features that enable those staying to be self-sufficient.

"Each [suite] also includes its own bath with indoor/outdoor shower, mini-fridge, and bar so guests can enjoy a drink without going to the main house whenever a private escape is wanted," said the architects.

The interiors feature rough plaster walls and concrete floors

The guest blocks are connected to each other and to the main home via open-air corridors, which provides plenty of opportunities for informal seating areas throughout the residence.

The home's interiors have a refined palette of wooden ceilings, rough plaster walls, and polished concrete floors.

The entrance to the home brings visitors past a reflecting pool

Other amenities made available to the residents include a bunkroom that can accommodate several children, as well as a home spa and gym with its own courtyard – all in the basement.

Other homes built in and around the Coachella Valley, where Palm Springs is located, include a minimalist residence surrounded by boulders and pine trees by Aidlin Darling Design, and a partially prefabricated home by Turkel Design that is meant to match the area's prevailing mid-century-modern aesthetic.

The photography is byRoger Davies.

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Project credits:

Lighting designer: Lux Populi

General contractor: RJC

Stylist: Anita Sarsidi

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David Saik gives Emeco a cactus-filled Californian brand home

US furniture brand Emeco has worked with architect David Saik to convert an old sewing factory in Los Angeles into a multipurpose hub and "conversation place" with a cactus growing from the ground indoors.

Located on the outskirts of a residential neighbourhood in Venice Beach, California, the Emeco House has an exhibition and event space as well as accommodation for visiting guests.

Saik worked with Emeco owner Gregg Buchbinder and his daughter, Emeco head of sustainability Jaye Buchbinder, to transform the 1940s building into an open and inviting place that could welcome designers, architects and the local community.

The Emeco House is a renovated 1940s building in Venice Beach, California

The father and daughter, who love nature and surf together weekly, also wanted Emeco House to reflect the brand's messaging around design and sustainability.

"This really gave us a chance to codify and scale our value system – focus on honest, humble materials," said Jaye Buchbinder. "Nothing is flashy, but everything is thought through."

"We hope the quiet comfort will help foster a closer connection between people who come here," she continued. "It's not a commercial space, it's a conversation place."

The renovation project was meant to capture Emeco's ethos around design and sustainability

The starting point for the Emeco House was a desire to retain, upgrade and restore the existing building, a former sewing factory, in defiance of local norms favouring demolition.

In doing so, the architect and clients hoped to create not only a more environmentally sustainable project but one that would be connected to its neighbourhood.

Saik preserved the original structure of the building, exposing parts that had previously been covered, while progressively adding interventions in layers that he hoped would integrate seamlessly with the existing elements.

The house includes a cactus planted beneath a light-well

He describes it as a kind of "architectural natural diversity", where the old and new support each other in the creation of an indivisible whole.

The Emeco House features large open spaces for events, exhibitions and workshops downstairs, and a more domestic area upstairs, with room for guests to cook, eat, sleep and socialise.

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"One can move between easily between these spaces and always find a place to gather and have a conversation, such as the built-in benches at the open window to the street, or the bench at the entry, or on the benches on the backyard wall," Saik told Dezeen.

The Emeco House is zero-energy and powered by its own solar panels. Light-wells and skylights optimise the supply of natural light while also helping with cooling through passive ventilation, as they are either fully retractable or fitted with operable vents.

The building features open spaces for events, exhibitions and workshops on the ground floor

Plantings feature in all spaces, including a roof garden of succulents and, on the ground floor, a cactus that extends through the ceiling and into the light-well, where it can enjoy the natural air and daylight.

"The cactus brings the exterior and the interior together and provides a great deal of joy to the atmosphere of the architecture," said Saik.

Upstairs is a more domestic area for accommodating guests

The interior fittings and finishes were mostly done with the help of local contractors, carpenters and fabricators, including the cabinetry, interior and exterior plaster walls, and custom steel windows, doors and rolling gates.

Emeco was stablished in 1944, the same year it created its well-known 1006 Navy Chair, intended for US Navy submarines and made from salvaged aluminium. It is still in production today.

The house is intended to be more of a "conversation place" than a commercial space

The brand's recent products include the On and On chair, an endlessly recyclable plastic chair by Barber and Osgerby.

The company is also in the process of building a zero-energy factory in California, which will use solar energy to power its mechanical systems, appliances and heating.

The photography is byMartin Tessler.

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Gluck+ covers Hollywood Hills home with an angular roof

A faceted roof on slender columns tops this home by Gluck+ in Los Angeles' Hollywood Hills neighbourhood, covering the residence "like a parasol".

Simply named California House, the single-family residence was completed by New York City firm Gluck+ on a "spectacular" steep site overlooking LA.

An angular roof on slender columns tops California House

From the property, residents enjoy panoramic views of the surrounding mountains and the Hollywood Sign landmark.

"Building on this site, long considered unbuildable, presented two challenges," said Gluck+. "First, to minimise the impact of the house on the landscape and second, to create sufficient flat area to be comfortable for outdoor activities."

The project was designed for a family

The team resolved this by creating a strong separation between the upper and lower levels of the home. Burying the lower floor into the steep hillside created a plinth on which the top floor could be built.

Since the upper level's footprint is smaller than the storey beneath, it is surrounded by a flat exterior space surrounding on all sides.

Bedrooms are located on the lower level

"The lower floor is carved into the hill and with its expanse of green roof, it creates a strong ground-plane, or bench, in the steeply sloping land," the architects explained. "This section, though large, is meant to be essentially invisible."

Gluck+ included four bedrooms, six bathrooms, home offices, a theatre, and most of the private spaces on the lower level.

A home cinema is also located downstairs

The top floor contains areas for cooking, entertaining, and gathering as a family. This airy space is glazed on all sides and has tall, angled ceilings that follow the outline of the sculptural roof.

"Everything here is configured to maintain the simplicity and openness of the space," said Gluck+. "Kitchen and spatial divisions never touch the ceiling so that it seems to float above on independent steel supports."

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The roof sits on slender steel columns, and offers plenty of shade both within the home and for the surrounding exterior spaces.

"Like a vast parasol, the roof of the house is a rectangle with upturned edges that extend well beyond the footprint of the rectangular pavilion," said team.

Neutral interiors feature inside California House

Building so much of the 7,500-square-foot (696-square-metre) home underground helped Gluck+ meet California's Title 24 Energy Code, which sets some of the strictest efficiency standards in the US.

Among the building's other sustainable features are geothermal heating and cooling, as well as solar panels on the roof that are hidden in the upturned surfaces. According to the architects, these produce more energy than the home consumes.

It has expansive views of the Hollywood Hills

Gluck+ is an architecture and construction firm that was formerly known as Peter Gluck and Partners Architects.

Other projects by the studio include a laboratory and research centre in North Carolina that is meant to withstand harsh coastal weather, and an artist's residence in Upstate New York made up of wooden volumes connected by glass walkways.

The photography is byPaul Vu.

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Project credits:

Gluck+ team: Austin Anderson, Ross Galloway, Thomas Gluck, Matthew Harmon, Narin Hagopian, Gonzalo Moran

Civil and structural engineer: Peck

Geotechnical engineer: Schick Geotechnical

Mechanical engineer: IBC Engineering Services, Inc. CES Engineering

Lighting design: Lux Populi

Interior design: Insight Environmental Design

Landscape design: Hoerr Schaudt

Expeditor: Kimberlina Whettam and Associates

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Bunch Design adds colourful granny flat to a home in Los Angeles

American practice Bunch Design has completed a colourful granny flat modelled on an oversized suit at the back of a home in Los Angeles, with sliding doors that enable it to become a single open space.

Accessory Dwelling Units (ADUs), commonly known as "granny flats", were enabled by a 2016 change in state law to tackle California's housing shortage, and the local studio wanted to challenge the expectation of these buildings as something deferential to a main house.

The SMS ADU was built behind a house in LA

The 72-square-metre building, which has been shortlisted in the small interior category of Dezeen Awards 2021, was designed to create a bright and breezy alternative to the client's dark and compartmentalised existing home.

The concept by Bunch Design drew on an unusual reference: the huge, oversized suit worn by Talking Heads frontman David Byrne in the 1984 movie Stop Making Sense. This lends the project its name of SMS ADU or Stop Making Sense Accessory Dwelling Unit.

Bunch Design added sliding doors to separate areas inside the dwelling

For the structure, the wide shoulder pads of Byrne's suit that caused it to hang from his body become a series of oversized triangular rafters from which the rest of the home "hangs". These features are emphasised by clerestory windows that angle outwards like broad shoulders.

"Byrne comically and awkwardly creates an inflated body mass around his skinny body," said the studio.

"We did not want the walls to limit the house or feel like tight clothes around a body. Instead, we wanted to create a sense of lift and expansion, like loose and comfortable clothes, dissolving barriers between indoor/indoor and indoor/outdoor."

The building has triangular rafters

The home is split into four roughly equal sections: a double bedroom; a kitchen and bathroom; an entrance hall; and a study. Each is separated by blue doors that slide along the triangular wooden rafters.

Coloured areas such as blue and red walls in the bedroom, green kitchen cabinets, pale blue bathroom tiles and a peach-coloured wall in the study demarcate each of these spaces.

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"The simple colour selection adds an almost toy-like, colour-coded space which keeps the house from feeling too singular," the studio explained.

The angled clerestory windows beneath the roof, as well as voids in the centre of the triangular frame that are glazed at either end, bring large amounts of light into the home

Pale blue tiles cover the bathroom walls and floor

"Standard clerestory windows were installed at an angle to break the common notion of 'wall meets ceiling', with unexpected reflections of the landscape and trees on the tilted glass," the studio explained.

This bright and dynamic interior is contrasted by a simple pale exterior clad in wooden planks, with yellow window frames alluding to the colourful spaces inside.

Colourful spaces define the ADU

In 2019, the Los Angeles Design Festival highlighted a range of architect-designed granny flats, including a previous ADU by Bunch Design built for the studio's founders, Bo and Hisako, in LA's Highland Park neighbourhood.

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