What do boats, dumpsters, and car sun roofs all have in common" Not much, really ? except for the fact that all three influenced the design and functionality of a highly unusual add-on office pod by Los Angeles design firm Knowhow Shop.

Detached backyard home offices are an intriguing proposition for property owners, providing just enough separation from domestic life for optimal concentration while simultaneously allowing for easy access to home-cooked meals and eliminating the hassle of commutes. They also present great opportunities for architectural experimentation, whether that means creating artistic shapes in and of themselves, augmenting a historic home with a modern addition, or covering a simple structure with a lush, serene net of living ivy. For architects Kagan Taylor and Justin Rice, designing their own detached office was a labor of love that served three purposes at once. Today, their pod sits in a paved lot adjacent to the firm’s main facilities in Highland Park.

?This is not a project that we would have been able to hand off to a contractor to execute, so we bypassed the normal methods of an architectural production and relied on the most experimental potential of our design/build model,? the architects explain. ?Lighthouse is an office for our business, a showcase of our craft, and an example of the huge potential within rethinking the way we design and build.?
Taylor and Rice didn?t just aim to approach the project from a new perspective ? ...