pittman dowell residence

The Pittman Dowell Residence is a 3,100-square-foot house completed in 2009 in La Crescenta, California, designed by Michael Maltzan Architecture. Positioned on a six-acre parcel at the margin of the Angeles National Forest, the project occupies the final of three hillside pads originally prepared in a 1950s subdivision plan developed by Richard Neutra. The residence responds to a site already shaped by decades of change, including a desert garden and outdoor pavilion established by the owners, as well as the growing urban context surrounding what was once a remote location. The brief reflected the owners' evolving needs, seeking a more contained and urban relationship to landscape than the earlier Neutra house above. The new residence is organized around a heptagonal form interrupted by diagonal cuts, producing a plan without parallel walls and a series of spatial distortions. This geometry generates interior spaces that shift in perspective and sequence, avoiding conventional room enclosures and forgoing doors in favor of layered boundaries that define privacy through the arrangement of views and overlapping areas. At the core of the house, an irregular central void functions as an outdoor room, blurring distinctions between inside and out as it connects to adjoining living spaces.

Typical architect fee for a 3,100 sq ft new home here: $67,000 – $191,000Full services, California · BLS wage and Census construction data

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