Project Info
IDEA HOUSE
Developed as a prototype for San Diego's standard single-family lots, the design offers a more appropriate way of making a home in the region.
Commissioned by a local magazine, the architects were charged with conceiving a more appropriate San Diego house. The architects responded by making a garden and arranging a few rooms on its perimeter. The garden was conceived as a gathering of the regional landscape traditions into a kind of lush microcosm. The major living space is placed in this space under a tent-like roof. Connections from the efficient indoor spaces to the garden are through roll back barn doors.
In addition to the climate, a concern for the community informed the solution. On a typical lot, the movement and storage of automobiles tends to overwhelm public interaction, and to avoid this, cars are placed behind a street edge building that houses a home office. This strategy puts people at the street and shields the cars from the same.
A portal wide enough for a car but scaled more for a person creates a ceremonial entry and a view into the garden beyond. The cars park in a plaza under the outdoor roof and can be moved out to allow co-opting when entertaining.
Model photos by David Harrison
Landscape Design & Drawings by Spurlock Poirier Landscape Architects.
