Rear Window House
Architect: Edward Ogosta Architecture
Location: Culver City, California
Category: Up to $1.5 million in construction cost (category two)
This project demonstrates how a thoughtful, strategic intervention can breathe new life into an older home and be good for the neighborhood, without sacrificing the needs of the contemporary family
The Rear Window House is a discreet yet decidedly modern remodel + addition to a seventy-year-old bungalow in a neighborhood with numerous intact dwellings of the same era. The owner’s growing family necessitated building a 450 square foot extension into the backyard, consisting of a new master suite and library. 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. The project culminates in the master bedroom’s expansive rear window, formed of aluminum-clad plate steel, which cantilevers above a quietly bubbling 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.
"A beautiful and precise addition which gave a new reading to the historic bungalow" ~ Jury comment
