Project Details
- Project Name
- Rear Window House
- Location
- CA
- Architect
- Edward Ogosta Architecture
- Project Types
- Single Family
- Project Scope
- Addition/Expansion
- Year Completed
- 2016
- Awards
- 2018 AIA Small Project Awards
- Shared by
- Hanley Wood
- Project Status
- Built
2018 Residential Architect Design Awards/ Renovation/Adaptive Reuse / Award
“I love the way it deals with renovating the very typical ranch house: This could easily be a brand new house that is ground-up, and it really does make a case for reusing an existing structure.” —Stella Betts
Tucked into a residential neighborhood in Culver City, Calif., this 70-year-old, one-story bungalow offers a trim, updated façade on the street front, but few clues to the compact gem of an extension that owner and architect Edward Ogosta, AIA, added to the back.
Needing more space for his growing family, Ogosta added a library, master bath, and master bedroom while retaining the sanctity of the small backyard.
The 450-square-foot addition extends from one side of the house, creating an L-shaped plan that frames a small patio between the rear façade and an existing, freestanding garage. Floor-to-ceiling windows along the length of the addition and a covered back porch, attached to the original house, look out onto the patio, making it an outdoor room.
Another picture window, at the back of the extension—the “rear window” that gives the house its name—looks out from the master bedroom onto a small green yard that is bracketed on two sides by tall shrubs. The window frame, made of aluminum-clad plate steel, cantilevers over a small pool, giving the scene a quiet, private serenity.
Ogosta was intent on making sure the extension fit within the neighborhood vernacular, even as he modernized and slimmed down the original structure. He clad the entire extension in asphalt roofing shingles, which appear on most of the roofs in the area, and he gave the extension’s mono-pitched roof a 3:12 slope—the same as on the existing roof and in line with other nearby homes.
Ogosta kept the original home largely intact, making minor alterations to the existing floor plan to accommodate flow to the new spaces, adding skylights, and recovering the floors with bleached oak, which together give the home a cleaner, brighter, and more modern look.
See the full list of winners of the 2018 Residential Architect Design Awards.
Project Credits
Project: Rear Window House, Culver City, Calif.
Client: Ed and Kate Ogosta, and daughter Audrey
Architect/Interior Designer: Edward Ogosta Architecture, Los Angeles . Ed Ogosta, AIA (principal)
Structural Engineer: Reiss Brown Ekmekji
General Contractor: Silver Leaf Construction & Renovation
Size: 1,450 square feet
Cost: $250,000
Materials and Sources
Bathroom Fixtures: Americh (Turo tub); Duravit (Vero basin); Toto USA (Aquia commode); Graff (M.E. Series faucets/hardware)
Cabinets: Duravit (X-Large vanity); Ikea (Voxtorp kitchen cabinet, designed by Henrik Preutz and Wiebke Braasc)
Countertops: Caesarstone (Pure White)
Flooring: Bleached red oak flooring with Rubio Monocoat; Emser Tile (Style tile, master bath); Agora Natural Surfaces (terrazzo tile in Coral Grey, kitchen)
Furniture: Viesso (custom sofa); Marimekko (Pirput Parput pillows, designed by Vuokko Eskolin-Nurmesniemi); Ikea (Sinnerlig coffee table, designed by Ilsa Crawford; Lätt desk; Alex desk, designed by Johanna Asshoff; Flisat stool, designed by Sarah Fager and John Karlsson); MidcenturyLA (Scandinavian antique dining table and bedside tables); Herman Miller (Eames Molded Plywood Dining Chair, Eames Lounge Chair and Ottoman, Eames Soft Pad Executive Chair, all designed by Charles and Ray Eames designed by Charles and Ray Eames); Ikea (Botkyrka shelf); Heath Ceramics (dinnerware); Georg Jensen (cutlery designed by Arne Jacobsen); Hem (Key Side Table, designed by GamFratesi); Elfa (White Elfa Solid Shelf Bracket); CB2 (Simple Wood Bed Base); Modernica (Fiberglass Arm Shell Rocking Chair); Babyletto (Hudson crib)
Hardware: Omnia Hardware
Lighting: Moooi (Random Light, designed by Bertjan Pot); BoConcept (Curious Floor Lamp and Curious Wall Lamp, designed by Henrik Pedersen); Muuto (E27 Pendant Light, designed by Mattias Ståhlbom from Design Within Reach); Artemide (Tolomeo Desk Lamp, designed by Michele De Lucchi and Giancarlo Fassina; Basic Strip Bath Bar, designed by Ron Rezek); Lithonia Lighting (Hevi Lite PAR20 Up/Down
Paints/Finishes: Dunn-Edwards
Roofing: Malarkey (asphalt roofing shingles)
Site/Landscape Products: Redwood table and benches (custom design by Ed Ogosta, AIA)
Skylight: Velux
Windows and Doors: Western Window Systems, Milgard, T.M. Cobb, Ziegler Doors
Project Description
FROM THE ARCHITECTS:
The Rear Window house is a discreet yet decidedly modern addition + remodel to a seventy-year-old bungalow in a neighborhood abundant with intact dwellings of the same era. Through careful sequencing of new spaces and strategically located apertures, the project opens itself up to become deeply integrated with the rear garden.
While the existing house served admirably as a compact starter home for decades, the current owner’s growing family necessitated building a master suite extension into the backyard, consisting of a new laundry room, closet, library, master bedroom and bathroom. Positioning the addition parallel to the existing garage ensured a snug fit onsite and created an axial path between the buildings leading to the rear yard. To strengthen the connection between old and new, the addition maintains the 3:12 roof slope prevailing in the existing house and throughout the neighborhood. The new volume is entirely skinned with asphalt roofing shingles, which anchors the building to the vernacular materiality of the area while projecting a uniquely contemporary identity. A new covered back porch, concrete platform, and extruded window frames further the sense of horizontal extension into the backyard.
Existing interiors have been updated to be simple and bright, via new skylights, bleached oak floors, and white walls. The project culminates in the master bedroom’s expansive rear window, formed of aluminum-clad plate steel, which cantilevers above a pool of water. The window offers the intensely private experience of sleeping and awakening in nature, and at times the house feels a thousand miles from the city.
