Located in a 19th-century planned residential community and adjacent to the common park, the exterior of this 5,400-square-foot house is a counterpoint to its verdant surroundings. Even so, the views, specific trees, and sun exposure each importantly informed the organization of indoor and outdoor living spaces. The massing of the house takes advantage of the sloping site: the major rooms of the house are organized on a single level to meet the needs of the client, and a lap pool and flexible room on the lower level open to the expansive portion of property.

Interior spaces are multi-functional, and rooms strike a balance between being discrete and opening to each other. The circulation allows constant views to the outdoors, while the landscape design, with its varied gardens and courts around the house, both screens and reveals the house in the procession from the street to the front door.

The project was conceived as a composition of varied but complementary materials, which were detailed to express their attendant methods of construction. Not unlike a beautiful black-and-white photograph, the similarities in color unify the visual effect of brick, stucco, stained wood, and aluminum.