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Unbuilt Architecture
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| # 283 |
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| Completion |
10 / 2025 |
| Specific Use of Building |
Single Family Residence |
| Project Location |
Palm Springs, CA |
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Located at the southern edge of Desert Palisades in Palm Springs, California, this 1,756-square-foot unbuilt residence occupies a position of singular drama. Situated below the main street on a rugged slope, the plot offers an immediate connection to the desert floor with views stretching deep into the Indian Canyons. The defining contextual feature is a protected, rock-lined Cahuilla Indian water flume cutting through the property, an ancestral path that dictated a design of absolute environmental deference, suspending a fluid living core and two private bedroom wings entirely above the grade.
The project exercises intense spatial and fiscal discipline. By restricting the conditioned footprint to an efficient 1,756 square feet and eliminating redundant transitional spaces, material usage and overall construction volume were minimized. This micro-footprint strategy allowed the budget to be strategically reallocated away from sheer volume and directed toward high-impact structural moves and premium, hyper-precise interior fabrications.
The project presented a trifecta of extreme constraints: a steep topography sloping below street level, strict site-disturbance limits, and a historic Cahuilla flume forming an absolute "no-go" zone. Solving these required a heroic structural feat, engineering the entire home to float as a singular plane making contact at just two points. Monolithic CMU masses serve as these dual structural anchors, supporting heavy steel beams that cantilever over the easement.
To elevate the architecture beyond a typical steel-and-glass box, the team implemented a bespoke material hack for the CMU masses. Standard burnished blocks were sliced in half to expose their internal structural voids, then rotated 90 degrees during installation. This turned a utilitarian material into a deeply textured, shadow-casting sculptural relief that dynamically registers the harsh desert sun.
Maintaining a razor-thin, uninterrupted roofline with wall-to-wall glass sliders presented an intense mechanical challenge. To achieve the James Turrell-inspired circular aperture and zero-soffit ceilings, the entire "guts" of the home (HVAC, plumbing, and electrical) had to be compressed and routed entirely within the CMU stem walls and beneath the floor plate. This required meticulous, engineering to feed all utilities from below, preserving a pure, uncompromised horizontal plane from front to back.
Passive climate control drives the geometry. Massive 7-to-12-foot roof overhangs self-shade the structure, while deep-inset windows and limited western glazing mitigate intense solar heat gain. Elevating the home avoids traditional cut-and-fill grading, leaving the fragile desert topography and native flora completely undisturbed, while promoting natural airflow beneath and through the home via operable, full-height glass sliders. Low-level integrated lighting and focused monopoints eliminate interior glass glare while strictly honoring the community’s dark-sky compliance. |
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