Modern house with large glass windows and sliding doors, outdoor sitting area with chairs and a small table, swimming pool with wooden deck, surrounded by lush green trees and plants.

Elevado Residence

Silver Lake, Los Angeles, CA
Residential / Addition
Existing: 2,283 SF / Added: 459 SF
Completed

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The Elevado Residence is a pavilion-like addition to a beautiful 1913 Craftsman home on a gently sloping hillside lot in Silver Lake, California. The addition is at the rear of the home, creating a connection between the home, the yard, and the new pool.

Designing the addition over a century later, we utilized steel structural framing to emphasize the lightness and delicacy of the extension in contrast to the heft of the Craftsman architecture.

Modern house with glass and wood features, surrounded by landscaped garden and stepping stone pathway, next to a swimming pool, with palm trees in the background.

The presence of the addition activates the previously overlooked rear yard.

Person swimming in a backyard pool next to a modern house with a patio and a brown dog standing on the deck.

It is now a vibrant space for relaxation and play within the thriving garden.

The addition is modest in scale, increasing the existing 2,600-square-foot residence by only 460 square feet. It’s a flexible, unprogrammed space that connects the clients to the outdoors. When the multi-slider doors are closed, the addition serves as a space with a writing desk and an intimate reading area. ​Conversely, when the multi-sliding doors are open, the addition transforms into a covered communal area, extending ​to the pool and yard.

The delicate structure is completely surrounded by flourishing vegetation. The light-touch of the design gives the sense that the addition is a landscape feature as much as an architectural one.

Designing the addition over a century later, we utilized steel structural framing to emphasize the lightness and delicacy of the extension in contrast to the heft of the Craftsman architecture. Out of admiration, we preserved the home’s facade by creating a literal gap between the house and the addition. This gap renders the two structures entirely independent, connected solely by sheet metal flashing.

Modern interior space featuring a wooden staircase, gray support pole, white couch, and minimalist decor with horizontal white slat wall panels and a pink framed artwork.

The main stair extends beyond the home and into the outdoor seating area.

The separation of the home and the addition makes them more intimately interconnected. The addition doesn't have a rear wall adjacent to the home, leaving the home’s clapboard exterior exposed. The presence of the existing facade within the addition preserves the home and complicates the sense of interior and exterior.

Similarly, the staircase from the house is a cantilevered, wood-clad “extrusion” that projects into the addition without touching it. The staircase hovers lightly over the addition's floor, emphasizing the delicate interplay between the ​two independent structures.

Two axes bisect the plan at right angles. These axes organize circulation, guiding movement between the house and pool and across the addition. The roof is elevated along this axis to provide the necessary head height when descending the stairs from the existing residence and to create a clerestory that accentuates the colonnade.

This circulation axis divides the square plan into four quadrants, three of which contain program, while the fourth functions as a void to notch the addition around the existing house. The largest quadrant is the covered patio area, a square corner that overlaps with the fluid and expressive geometry of the pool.

Concrete stepping stones in a garden with various green plants and shrubs.

The dense vegetation surrounds the entryway down to the addition and pool.

A backyard with a wooden hot tub, green grass, and various plants and shrubs behind a wooden fence.
Modern house with a glass-enclosed outdoor living area, pool, and landscaped yard.

When the multi-sliding doors are open, the addition transforms into a covered communal area, extending over the pool.

Detailed model showing relationship with the existing house.

We’re always interested in how our process influences design outcomes and typically work with both analog and digital methods simultaneously (sketching, Rhino, physical modeling, orthographic drawing, etc.). The project's limited scope allowed the office to experiment with a solely analog design approach. The addition was designed entirely through sketching and physical models, enabling us to explore a broad range of options that intuitively incorporated material and physical constraints.

An illustration of a modern house with a glass-enclosed patio area, featuring a woman standing on the stairs, outdoor chairs, a pool with a pink flamingo float, and a beach ball, surrounded by greenery and trees.

Drawing of the addition

This circulation axis divides the square plan into four quadrants, three of which contain program, while the fourth functions as a void to notch the addition around the existing house. 

The roof is elevated along the circulation axis, creating a clerestory colonnade. A clerestory provides the necessary headroom for the stairs from the residence.