This is a proposed design for a house in the Silver Lake neighborhood of Los Angeles. The site is a gently sloping, extra deep (150') lot not far from the lake. Recently-built, the neighboring house is a tall and imposing structure designed by a prominenent local firm. Because of this, shielding both indoor and outdoor spaces from the neighbor was a primary design goal.

The house arranged around a central courtyard that is the center of family life. Large openings are designed for natural ventilation and to take advantage of the indoor-outdoor lifestyle afford by the climate. To minimize cut-and-fill, much of the house is built on-grade, with spaces creating a procession from public-to-private as they step up the gentle hillside.

Along the east side of the site is a lap pool with an infiniti lip. Unlike many pools where this is done for purely aesthetic reasons, the cascading water forms one wall of the courtyard, and it works as a cooling device to ensure that the courtyard can be used during the hottest months of the year.