2018 AIA|LA
Residential Architecture Awards
Winners Announced

+ 2018 Residential Architecture Award Winning Images

(For a complete list of winners plus jury notes, scroll down.)

Los Angeles, CA – June 28, 2018 – The American Institute of Architects Los Angeles chapter (AIA|LA) is honored to announce the twenty-three recipients of the chapter’s third Residential Architecture Awards. The program celebrates excellence in contemporary residential design at all scales and variations.

Entries were reviewed, and winners selected, by a prestigious jury composed of: Jenna Chandler – Editor, Curbed LA; Mike Deasy – Chief Executive Officer, deasy/penner; and Alice Kimm, FAIA – Co-Founder, John Friedman Alice Kimm Architects (JFAK).

The awards, presented at an elegant cocktail party in Los Angeles last night, were issued by category: Affordable Housing, Adaptive Reuse | Renovation | Historic Preservation, Multifamily Residential, and Single-Family Residential.

Recipients in each category were recognized with Honor, Merit or Citation awards, “Honor” being the highest. Please find the 2018 Residential Architecture Award winners along with jury notes on each project, below.

SINGLE-FAMILY RESIDENTIAL
(up to 2,500 square feet)

Citation

Saddle Peak Residence
(Topanga, CA)
Sant Architects
We loved this project for its siding, its relationship to the natural landscape, its proportions, the use of materials. | Very beautiful. | The materials are rich and contrasting. The concrete almost looks like brick. | We liked that the house is transparent which lends the house not only a certain drama but also an elegance.

Tilt-Shift House
(Los Angeles, CA)
ANX / Aaron Neubert Architects
The house represents a very good solution to an uphill lot. It appears to almost fit in with the hillside itself, and yet stands apart. | The dark façade really works here. | The shape of the house matches very nicely with the older home above it- it almost fits together like a puzzle. | We were all taken by the street façade—the composition, the size and relationship of openings works beautifully. | The procession up to the front door is very well handled, and the relationship to the modernist concrete icon above it is also very compelling.

SINGLE-FAMILY RESIDENTIAL
(up to 5000 square feet)

Merit

Callow Residence
(Altadena, CA)
Corsini Stark Architects
The entry to the house was very geometric and simple, and belies the complexity that lies beyond as one proceeds through the house and descends to the next level. It becomes much more complex, but indeed—all integrated. | This project is very dramatic, formally. We loved the cantilevering, large sloped canted roof form. The geometry and formal moves of the house are varied all the way through into the site plan and the landscape– that was very successful. | The tile is very beautiful.

Birch Residence
(Los Angeles, CA)
Griffin Enright Architects
This house was very skillfully designed: the spine that cuts through the center of the house and leads to pool, becomes the pool actually, with a kind of tectonic ceiling. Very, very interesting; spatially powerful. | Very interesting, dynamic house. | The house was both innovative and quite live-able. | The roof spine turns very gracefully above, into the pool below which continues the entire progression through the house so one is aware of the sky above, and eventually the water below. | Totally stands out. Unique, and especially from the outside.

Citation

Venice House
(Venice, CA)
Rios Clementi Hale Studios
Venice is seeing so many long, skinny lots that are being developed in virtually the same box-y fashion. This house breaks that fashion—it becomes a series of volumes and at the same time preserves the outdoor space to the side of the house, with a pool | The angled and faceted planning moves resolve themselves really well three-dimensionally, so the house, in the end, is very elegant where it could have been quite messy. | We loved the slotted screens. The way the screening elements are woven throughout the entire (not just through the exterior but also the inside, and through the landscaping in the form of paving) is really nicely handled. | A beautiful, light-filled house.

Croft Residence
(Los Angeles, CA)
AUX Architecture, Brian Wickersham, AIA
This is a very elegant and beautifully executed house. | We liked the way the progression through the house, both inside and outside, works so that every square foot of space- both on top of an interior volume, as well the exterior/interior relationships are utilized to their fullest potential. | The tight-site nicely handled. | Well-proportioned volumes and openings—very elegant. | The house is both simple and yet sophisticated, given the size. The architect integrated and forced a certain degree of simplicity, and yet, both by volumetric positioning and siding, there is a very gentle sophistication which makes the house very livable. | The house is modular, but yet light and airy- it doesn’t feel overbearing in any way. | The roof garden was a nice touch.

Y Chalet
(Faraya, Lebanon)
PARALX
We were especially taken by the façade on this home—the way that the façade mimics the stone of the nearby, older houses, is really beautiful. It meshes well, it’s contemporary and fresh, we only wish we could have seen even more of the house, inside especially. | The façade is a stone façade, which mimics the properties around it, as well as the stone pavers which are in the garden. Very excellent use of space and texture. | This façade is amazing, right down to the level of light fixtures being incorporated into the joints between the panels. We do want to say that if we had been able to see more of the interior space it would have been fantastic. We think it’s a great project and we would have loved to see more.

SINGLE-FAMILY RESIDENTIAL
(5,000 square feet and up)

Honor

Waverley
(Palo Alto, CA)
Ehrlich Yanai Rhee Chaney Architects
Absolutely deserved the Honor Award in the category. The incredibly refined and sophisticated detailing–in particular, all of the kinds of ways in which the eves and the rooflines, and the edges of the volumes were handled. Just a fantastic house, inside and outside | Beautifully constructed as well. | The detailing is exquisite. The house and the spaces are exciting, without being overly indulgent or overly egocentric. | There is a certain repose to the interior, that extends throughout the house and into the landscaping. | It speaks to, and honors, the mid-century modern tradition, but with more contemporary finishes that make it fresh for today.

Bridge Residence
(Los Angeles, CA)
Belzberg Architects
The wrapping on this house is very visually interesting. We were struck by the cut-outs that let the light in and by the fact that the entire house wasn’t wrapped in that same material, that there is differing materials that were used on the façade that make it really interesting. | A very elegant house- making use of exquisite detailing. The façade is an enigma and presents itself to the public in a way that invites one in and upon entering, descending into the garden, the shapes immediately explode into an exuberance- which is unexpected. | A very complex house with many different volumes holding many different programmatic elements, but all of it comes together very beautifully. | Exceptionally well-detailed. A compelling use of different natural materials to express the different volumes of the house, which also works very successfully. The mystery of the front façade gives way to an incredible openness on the back, which is really nice.

Citation

Brise Soleil
(Beverly Hills, CA)
Studio William Hefner
A perfect name for this house. It incorporates screen in truly unusual and functional way. | This project is very, very fun. Primarily, what captured our imagination was the mechanical screen which makes the entire house function as an enclosed environment which is protected from the sun, over long periods of time, and also creates very interesting shapes on the exterior façade. | For a house of this scale, we felt that the eclecticism of the materials, the furnishings, the screens, the volumes, all actually managed to come together in a really interesting and compelling way. Something that was kind of difficult to achieve, we imagine.

Barrington Residence
(Los Angeles, CA)
Eric Rosen Architects
A very interesting project full of unexpected moments and surprises—both spatial and material. | A very interesting house, impossible to tell what’s going on from the street side. The way the roof planes, and the house is sunken, and you have this garden on top of it—it’s very compelling. | The house is very understated, if not disappearing from the street at the façade. | We much appreciated that, the house is full of surprises. The shapes, the geometry, are based on a painting—and very much a part of the aesthetic and sustainability that we are looking for. | This house is a contemporary lair, that’s well concealed from the front, but from the back takes you by surprise. You see a house that, from the front, you thought that there might not be one. It could be a hideaway, but a very refined hideaway.

Multifamily Residential
(up to 20 units)

Citation

Bluplex
(Culver City, CA)
Yu2e
This house is understated, but handsome. | We appreciated the size of the outdoor space. | Very simple but very livable duplex which maintains good division of public and private spaces, by way of two horizontal flats. | The simplicity and purity of this project was really nice to see, and it carries through into really well-crafted details: floor-to-ceiling windows, buried headers, beautiful trellised structure that’s very minimal and nicely articulated. All of those things add up to a project that’s very economical, and very pure and very, very elegant.

Multifamily Residential
(50 units and up)

Citation

Otis College of Art and Design Campus Expansion
(Los Angeles, CA)
Ehrlich | Fisher
This project creates almost an abstract college quadrangle, using very simple and very elegant forms. | For student housing, it’s one of the better examples that we will be seeing. | We love the use of color here, and the very ample outdoor space. The interiors also look like they are full of light thanks to those big tall windows. | All of the spaces in this project are spaces that we would love to be if we were students—whether they are the work spaces for the fashion students, or the lounges, or the eating areas. | Great relationship to the outdoors, and the treatment of color both on the exterior and the interior are very skillful and well done.

UCSB San Joaquin Housing
(Santa Barbara, CA)
Kevin Daly Architects
This project expresses spatially what the needs of students are: certainly recreationally and socially. | We were very taken by the placement of the laundromat in a very prominent space, which is obviously is very important for student socialization. That optimizes the objective of this particular project. | There is ample outdoor space. | One of the most successful things about this project is the juxtaposition of different materials and different volumes that are all actually intimately scaled to the size of the individuals using them—so that one doesn’t really feel like they are on a huge, alienating campus. This campus is very large but actually, feels part of a smaller and more intimate community, both inside and outside spaces speak to this.

UCSB San Joaquin Student Housing
(Santa Barbara, CA)
Lorcan O’Herlihy Architects
Almost couldn’t believe this was student housing. | We were especially impressed by the way the buildings are laid out, the space to walk among them. There’s lots of open, negative space between the units. | The jury was impressed with the tightness of the inner courtyard, or quadrangle, that creates a feeling of safety. As students, we would feel safe here. | We were also impressed by the modulation and almost musical rhythm of the vertical spandrels that both decorate the façade as well as appear to structurally hold up the walkways. | There’s also a horizontal modulation that is achieved with the different scales of corrugated siding that run along each floor—another skillful thing that allows this project to have varying scale, which is interesting and very dynamic, and breaks up the size of the project to be very, very intimate.

Adaptive Reuse | Renovation | Historic Preservation

Honor

Mayumi
(Culver City, CA)
ShubinDonaldson
This is a project stood out from the rest in its category. | Everything that has been added to the existing structure makes it sing, and the attention to materiality, detailing, color, landscaping, surfacing, outdoor space: everything has been well thought out and well resolved. | What a surprise. One would never believe what was there in the originality of this particular building. | The project is very exuberant, it fits the clientele immensely: it’s playful, it’s colorful. The exterior (both the lighting as well as the color) creates a very interesting and fun environment. | The glass at the street level makes for a really good pedestrian environment, so it benefits… even those are just walking by it. | The overall vibe fits in very well with Culver City.

Merit

Harvey House
(Palm Springs, CA)
Marmol Radziner
(original design: Buff & Hensman)
There are so many original details that were left intact: the rock façade, the beams, all the floor-to-ceiling windows. | This renovation is a tribute to Buff & Hensman who originally designed it. Their design was maintained, with a few touches here and there that accentuate the originality. | Beautiful renovation, preservation of this amazing house. Furniture and material choices were selected to not just enhance what was there already but to brighten-up and make this place glow. | Another thing that was beautifully done is the landscape design, which adds to the quality and character of the structure.

Three Schindlers Redux
(Inglewood, CA)
Ehrlich Yanai Rhee Chaney Architects
(original design: Rudolf Schindler)
Executed perfectly. The spaces almost look like they’re original and have been kept up-to-date, but they are actually new. They are absolutely beautiful. | While the project respected everything about Schindler that we could see, it also took a certain degree of courage and gumption to come into this particular locale and renovate three rather famous, and very important buildings. | Very well done.

Silvertop
(Los Angeles, CA)
Bestor Architecture
(original design: John Lautner)
The jury felt that this was probably one of the most important residential renovations in Los Angeles over the last 5-6 years. This preservation will cement the home’s iconic status in Los Angeles well into the future. The home looks contemporary but retains all of its important shapes and features. | The choices of materials and furnishings—everything has been selected carefully to enhance the original quality. Landscaping, lighting, all of these things that are available in the twenty-first century have been utilized to make the original structure sing. | A very important house, done in an exquisite way, by a well-positioned and very well-intentioned owner who had at their disposal every possible dynamic to make the house work in today’s modern living.

Citation

Garden House
(Atwater Village, CA)
Design, Bitches
A perfect name for this house. The garden feels like it’s part of the house and the new spaces do feel like they are part of a garden. The way the interior and exterior spaces in this small, tight lot interact is one of the strongest aspects. | It respects the neighborhood, and the street, and yet opens up surprisingly to a very important and restful garden. | The intersection of the old and the new is well-done in terms of detailing. | This is a very charming project; well-executed with outdoors spaces that are fantastic.

The Salkin House
(Los Angeles, CA)
Bestor Architecture
(original design: John Lautner)
This is a sensitive restoration of a Mid-Century modern that has a very interesting formal structural running through the center of it. | Very well done, a lot of the original finishing and materials are preserved, and the relationship of the interior to exterior is nicely handled. | They kept the original floors: not something that is commonly done. The interiors, and materials, and color choices were simple and minimal in keeping with the Mid-Century Modern spirit. | The jury wants to know who the original architect was. The restoration consistently shows not only the architecture and the structure throughout—there is no attempt to hide it in the renovation. | It’s a great example of a Mid-Century house that was probable small and serviceable at the time and is now very livable in the 21st century.

Writer’s Block
(Arts District, Downtown Los Angeles, CA)
CHACOL, Inc.
The jury likes this project for the way it created a sculptural piece in the middle that performs many different functions, and which also works to both zone the entire loft into different areas and extends the dynamism with the use of carpet squares on the floor and paint running up the walls. It allows the space to read as very dynamic, and yet one space. | The space seems to pivot around a central structure which we all appreciate: a very effective use of funds to create not just a livable, but also a work space which will create any number of writing non-blocks.

AFFORDABLE HOUSING

Merit

Anchor Place
(Long Beach, CA)
The Architects Collective
An excellent model for low-income housing in Los Angeles: there is tons of light and pubic space, lots of windows, and varying roof lines. | The stepping back of the one façade creates a feeling of home- hominess- and a feeling of belonging: two dimensions that are probably missing from a lot of low-income housing developments. | The jury’s understanding is that this project is not only affordable low-income housing but also housing for the homeless: so in that sense, it’s even more significant that you have a project of this quality, and beauty, being provided. We appreciate everything about it.

About the Residential Architecture Awards
Southern California has always been a dynamic global incubator for dazzling residential architecture. The AIA|LA Residential Architecture Awards (RAA) were founded, in part, to highlight the area’s contemporary contributions to the typology. Celebrating a multiplicity of approaches, the RAAs recognize both simply beautiful design and projects that offer the innovative or edgy as they address new urban and environmental conditions. Submissions were encouraged in the full gamut of scales from single-family residences of under 2,500 square feet to multi-family residential of more than 50 units.

The 2018 AIA|LA Residential Architecture Awards were presented by Humboldt Redwood.

About the 2018 Awards Ceremony
Winners received their awards at an elegant reception and cocktail party on Thursday, June 28 2018 in West Hollywood. The evening was graciously hosted by MASS Beverly and Minotti Los Angeles.

For print quality images and/or further information, contact: Tibby Rothman, Hon. AIA|LA at the AIA|Los Angeles, tibby@aialosangeles.org

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