SAOTA?s first completed project in Los Angeles, Stradella, is a remodel of an existing 1970?s house on a beautiful promontory in Bel Air. The original layout of site and dwelling were well planned to ensure privacy from the street and to address spectacular views over the LA basin, capturing the full panorama from Downtown to Century City, with mountains to the east and ocean to the south.
Photography: Adam Letch
On the client?s instruction to expunge all traces of the original Spanish style architecture, SAOTA decided to strip the existing house back to its timber skeleton, maximize the square footage and, by reinforcing or extending where necessary, create generous openings to draw the beautiful West Coast light, the rolling vistas and the verdant setting deep into the floorplan. This concept of ?inviting the outside in? encapsulates the SAOTA approach and at Stradella these informed design decisions ranging from space planning to façade design, landscaping, lighting, window configuration and shading details. Photography: Adam Letch
An attractive approach cut into deeply wooded hillside arrives at a leafy forecourt signaling the entrance of the house. The arrival façade is reimagined as a sculptural composition ? a massive buttress ties the house into the hillside; blank, stone-faced walls, incised with vertical screens hover over glazing, inviting the eye in and through. From the entrance lobby, an asymmetrical passage carved through the main body of the house intenti...