GLUCK+, the New York-based agency based by Peter Gluck, has lately accomplished a house within the Hollywood Hills that seems prepared for takeoff. Designed for Peter’s son and his household, the house comprises particulars that might seemingly solely come from a familial connection between an architect and a shopper. Constructed-ins may be discovered in all places all through, from minimalist coat racks by the second entrance door to a sheltered canine run designed to maintain the household pet protected from the coyotes that roam the hills.
A wafer-thin, multifaceted roof seems to hover over the property to angle upward towards the town under. “The roof extends far past the perimeter of the highest degree to perpetually shade the inside in addition to the out of doors seating areas simply past it,” Peter Gluck defined to AN. Inside, a remarkably open flooring plan and sparing use of structural columns render the ceiling a chilled expanse of crisp white that, in flip, brings out the wealthy textures and colours of the modular furnishings, virtually all of which was designed by Peter Gluck. Alongside its perimeter are wood-slatted buildings that conceal a variety of the house’s programmatic components, together with closets, a powder room, and electrical tools, whereas additionally offering a backdrop for a fireside and TV display screen.
Very similar to the close by John Lautner-designed Chemosphere, the house’s steep web site was lengthy thought-about to be unsuitable for building; that’s, till GLUCK+ divided the positioning into two distinct tectonic halves to reduce its influence on the panorama whereas making a flat space simply massive sufficient for a yard. The result’s a house whose backside half, carved deeply into the hillside, supplies an ample plinth for a prime half with a swimming pool, a cactus backyard, an expansive inexperienced area (a uncommon function for a house within the Hollywood Hills), and a pavilion-like construction that surrenders to a 180-degree view of the town—from Common Studios to the Hollywood Signal and the Griffith Observatory—by way of floor-to-ceiling home windows.
Whereas the 7,500-square-foot house stays deceptively modest in scale on its higher flooring the place nearly all of leisure areas are situated, the bedrooms, workplaces, and different personal and family-oriented rooms are all hidden away on the decrease degree. On the backside of the steps, the place an unique steel facade panel from Herzog & de Meuron’s Walker Artwork Middle is prominently displayed, is a household room with an leisure system neatly hid by heat wood panels. The bedrooms and workplaces line the northern half to obtain copious pure gentle and extra views of the town, and the screening room and closets on the other half are cooled by the pure insulation of the hillside. Whereas the decrease degree usually feels as open and ethereal because the one above, a collection of pocket doorways all through the vast central hall permits the household to find out the boundary between private and non-private for themselves.
At evening, the parasol-like roof is lit from under to border the house’s lofted perspective of the town in a fashion as dramatic because the vista itself.