Room of the Day: Light-Filled Painter’s Studio Respects Its Site
The contemporary structure is surprisingly compatible with the Los Angeles owners’ 1909 Craftsman house
A new structure designed to be compatible with a historic one doesn’t always look how you might expect. This contemporary studio takes its cues from a 1909 Shingle-style Craftsman home and the site on which they both sit. The painting studio — with a graceful roof that appears to float — respects and complements the historic J.B. Merrill House, one of the first homes built at the top of Los Angeles’ Mount Washington neighborhood. The H.M. Patterson-designed house is designated a Los Angeles Historic-Cultural Monument.
Los Angeles’ Office of Historic Resources approved architect Rick Corsini’s design for the studio. The unobtrusive building is strongly rooted in the site, maintains the home’s views, gives the homeowner the light-filled painting studio she wanted and is an asset to the property.
Los Angeles’ Office of Historic Resources approved architect Rick Corsini’s design for the studio. The unobtrusive building is strongly rooted in the site, maintains the home’s views, gives the homeowner the light-filled painting studio she wanted and is an asset to the property.
Here you see the soaring north-facing glass facade of the studio with the historic home in the background. Because of the thoughtful site planning and orientation, the studio looks different from this side than from the back of the house, where it appears tucked away and unobtrusive. The stairwell is on the right side, along the exterior but covered overhead by the large cantilever of the roofline.
The roof’s structure was inspired by the Craftsman architecture of the main house, but shows what newer technology can accomplish. While the roof on the main house is heavy, the studio’s roof is thin and light. The main house has heavy wooden rafter tails. Instead of rafters, Corsini used quarter-inch steel plates to emulate the layering. Because of the modern engineering the steel design allows, he was able to cantilever the thin steel plate portion out two feet from the studio. Layered atop the steel plate layer is corrugated metal, which extends the cantilever out another foot and a half. “The old roof is expressive and heavy, while the studio’s new roof is light and airy; it’s almost levitating,” Corsini says.
The roof’s structure was inspired by the Craftsman architecture of the main house, but shows what newer technology can accomplish. While the roof on the main house is heavy, the studio’s roof is thin and light. The main house has heavy wooden rafter tails. Instead of rafters, Corsini used quarter-inch steel plates to emulate the layering. Because of the modern engineering the steel design allows, he was able to cantilever the thin steel plate portion out two feet from the studio. Layered atop the steel plate layer is corrugated metal, which extends the cantilever out another foot and a half. “The old roof is expressive and heavy, while the studio’s new roof is light and airy; it’s almost levitating,” Corsini says.
The north-facing glass wall lets in the strong Southern California light indirectly, perfect for painting. Freeman is an attorney by day, but she also is an accomplished artist — that’s one of her paintings on the easel.
The siting helps keep the house cool passively. Sinking the building lets the earth around it act as an insulator, and the overhangs and orientation prevent direct sunlight from heating the interior up too much. An operable window within the clerestory allows for cross-ventilation. “Occasionally in the winter, Gwen brings a little space heater out here and wears a sweater, but that’s all she needs,” Corsini says.
The siting helps keep the house cool passively. Sinking the building lets the earth around it act as an insulator, and the overhangs and orientation prevent direct sunlight from heating the interior up too much. An operable window within the clerestory allows for cross-ventilation. “Occasionally in the winter, Gwen brings a little space heater out here and wears a sweater, but that’s all she needs,” Corsini says.
In contrast with the top of the studio, the base is heavy and cave-like. “The building is composed of two extremes: the heavy enclosure of the block walls and the light roof,” Corsini says.
When the architect spied this rusty red color option for the concrete blocks that form the walls, he was intuitively drawn to it. It turned out to be a nice complement to the olive green shingles on the main house. These are burnished concrete blocks with integral color — about an eighth of an inch was sliced off the faces to reveal the aggregate texture. The concrete floor also has integral color, this time in a yellowish-buff hue. Together with the okoume veneer on the ceiling and millwork, the colors warm the room in an unexpected way.
The studio is a 20-by-20-foot square, with the roof rotated to cut a strong diagonal across it. A floating steel square houses the track lights and emphasizes the geometry overhead.
If you look closely at the built-ins, you’ll see that the sides angle in, making them deepest at the bottom and shallowest at the top. Corsini planned this to make it easier to store different sizes of canvas; Freeman doesn’t have to go digging toward the back of deep shelves for smaller canvases.
While this is mainly her space, don’t feel too sorry for her husband, Andy — he loves to garden and has an aviary for canaries elsewhere on the lot.
Browse more stories about studio and workshop design
When the architect spied this rusty red color option for the concrete blocks that form the walls, he was intuitively drawn to it. It turned out to be a nice complement to the olive green shingles on the main house. These are burnished concrete blocks with integral color — about an eighth of an inch was sliced off the faces to reveal the aggregate texture. The concrete floor also has integral color, this time in a yellowish-buff hue. Together with the okoume veneer on the ceiling and millwork, the colors warm the room in an unexpected way.
The studio is a 20-by-20-foot square, with the roof rotated to cut a strong diagonal across it. A floating steel square houses the track lights and emphasizes the geometry overhead.
If you look closely at the built-ins, you’ll see that the sides angle in, making them deepest at the bottom and shallowest at the top. Corsini planned this to make it easier to store different sizes of canvas; Freeman doesn’t have to go digging toward the back of deep shelves for smaller canvases.
While this is mainly her space, don’t feel too sorry for her husband, Andy — he loves to garden and has an aviary for canaries elsewhere on the lot.
Browse more stories about studio and workshop design
Studio at a Glance
What happens here: This is the painting studio of artist and attorney Gwen Freeman at the home she shares with husband Andy Jardini, also an attorney
Location: Mount Washington neighborhood of Los Angeles
Size: 400 square feet (37 square meters)
Architect: Corsini Stark Architects
Corsini says site planning was an important part of the design of the neighborhood’s turn-of-the-last-century homes. “The house was sited to look over the mountains to the west, to take advantage of the way the offshore breezes work and oriented to keep the home cool,” he says. “Part of honoring that history was careful site planning that would maintain the views.”
With that in mind, Corsini chose a location for the studio downhill from the house and worked with the natural slope of the property to sink the structure into the ground. He wanted to find an architectural style that was compatible with the house, and Craftsman was not it.
“A carriage-house-like structure in a coordinating Shingle style would have been a solid block, looked clunky and ruined the views,” Corsini says. “All they would have been looking out at was a lot of roof.” He came up with a contemporary design that takes its cues from the original house. For example, the butterfly roof’s pitch is the inverse of the pitch of the roof on the house. It appears to float above a clerestory that makes the small building transparent.
“Another important part of the site planning was choreographing the transitional experience from the house to the studio,” the architect says. It begins from the living room, across the deck, down through the backyard, along the stone patio, down the covered stairs that descend along the side of the studio, then around the corner to the entry.