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A medieval-meets-modern house in the hills outside L.A.
Image 3 of 12
Topanga home tour
Shimizu + Coggeshall Architects borrowed the monolithic look of Romanesque architecture and allowed the thick, fortress-like walls to work to their advantage. "It was a matter of translating Romanesque into the abstract and giving it a contemporary treatment," Shimizu says. The approach hinged on CMU, or concrete masonry units -- the same humble concrete blocks sold at Home Depot for less than a dollar apiece. "Romanesque churches were made of heavy stone cut and stacked on site," Coggeshall says. "The massive stones were assembled with round arches and dictated small openings for light, so you got the overwhelming feeling that these large, dark structures were something permanent and of the earth."
Those requirements satisfied, the design team evoked Romanesque ruins by extending the concrete blocks upward from the foundation to varying heights. They topped the block walls with a steel roof, which was allowed to rust to a powdery orange. |
Design, Architecture, Gardens, Southern California Living |
A pleasant enough house (if a bit boxy), but apart from the lack of visual appeal in the cinderblock wallls, those blocks do not appear to be steel-reinforced (at least according to the blow-apart diagram in Image 3). If I lived in it, I'd be terrified that in a major earthquake the house would just disintegrate.