In the bustling coastal setting of Manhattan Beach, California, the AIA 2022 Gold Medalists Brooks + Scarpa have redefined urban living with their latest project, the Alma Switch House. Designed to cater to the beach lifestyle of a family with three young children, this innovative three-story home occupies a compact 30’ x 90’ hillside lot, a mere stone’s throw from the ocean.
Local zoning laws in Manhattan Beach typically lead to a homogeny of block-like structures, with large balconies and maximum building mass to comply with strict codes on lot coverage and open space. As such, most buildings include large balconies pushed to the extreme exterior edges of the buildings to meet the code required open space, then the remaining interior lot area is filled solid with building mass, resulting in bulky block-like structures full of perimeter balconies.
Brooks + Scarpa, however, flipped this script with the Alma house, prioritizing a blend of privacy, spaciousness, and connectivity to nature. At the heart of the design is a multi-purpose central courtyard in the middle of the site.
This strategic inclusion transforms the home, allowing each room to benefit from expansive windows that invite an abundance of natural light and facilitate air circulation from the nearby ocean breezes to easily pass through the house. This architectural choice not only breaks the massing of the structure into smaller more appropriately scaled forms, it also enhances the quality of living spaces but also maximizes the views of the ocean and sunsets by situating the main living areas along the property’s perimeter.
The entry to the Alma Switch House reveals a seamless spatial connection from the small walk street garden straight through to the upper living spaces, crafting a visual and functional extension of the indoors to the outdoors. This layout is especially advantageous for social gatherings, whereby sliding glass doors throughout enhance the harmonic relationship of the main rooms, providing an open yet intimate setting where the natural environment plays a central role. It allows the owners to host many guests without the feeling of being overburdened. The children can simultaneously play outdoors while under adult supervision from the rooms surrounding the courtyard.
Moreover, the house features a custom anodized aluminum three-dimensional screen wall on its eastern facade, which not only ensures privacy from the bustling street but also creates a dynamic interplay of light and shadow that changes throughout the day. Sunlight and bright lighting conditions make the façade shimmer and go soft and silver as people pass. This screen, combined with other passive design strategies, renders the Alma Switch House over 40% more energy-efficient than conventionally-designed standard homes meeting California’s Title 24 requirements.
Brooks + Scarpa’s Alma Switch House is more than just a building; it's the vanguard of a new era in residential design, reshaping the Manhattan Beach skyline and inviting us to reconsider what a beachside home can be and inspiring future developments to follow its lead. With its intelligent use of space and commitment to environmental sustainability, this home not only meets the needs of its residents but also asks us to rethink our expectations and embrace a future where architecture and nature exist in a more harmonious balance.
