Positive Space
Envisioning a house to frame the views in Laguna Beach.
Print
Email
Bookmark
ShareJune 1, 2006
Negative Space Gets a Bad Rap.It sounds so, well, negative. Luckily, interior designer Kristin Nugent knows how to think positively, and knows negative space is not negation. Nugent grew up in Davenport, Iowa, amid horizon-stretching cornfields where the occasional farmhouse or tree copse is as dramatic as a bold Japanese brush stroke on a bare rice paper scroll. Now she lives in Los Angeles, where the boundless Pacific Ocean is punctuated by Catalina Island and the occasional oil tanker. She knows how to separate the husk from the kernel, the grain of sand from the sand castle, the theory from the execution- while embracing both.
; function voidFunc() { } voidFunc();) |
; function voidFunc() { } voidFunc();) |
This broadness and particularity of vision is in high relief at this oceanfront house in Three Arch Bay in Laguna Beach, Calif., which she designed for a 38-year-old erstwhile mortgage banker and consumer finance lender who now manages a group of privately held companies in those same fields, in addition to co-managing, along with his bride, a beautiful baby girl.
; function voidFunc() { } voidFunc();)
The spa evolved from a very simple space into an entertainment area.
The woven club chairs are from Linea; the leather ottoman is from Holly Hunt. Photograph by John Ellis/www.johnellisphoto.com (Click image to enlarge)As with everything involving California beachfront real estate, the story of this clean-lined contemporary is complicated, starting with the property itself. “The building site was set in the middle of an unstable bluff area,” says James Conrad, principal of James Conrad Architects, who built the house, which has a foundation starting 50 feet below the adjacent street. “We assembled a team of engineers to design a system to support the street above and allow for the reconstruction of the building site for the safe construction of a home.”
; function voidFunc() { } voidFunc();) |
; function voidFunc() { } voidFunc();) |
Augmenting the physically shifting sands at the bottom of the palisade were the shifting sands of coastal California politics and circumstance. Because of the house’s oceanfront location, the plans had to be approved by multiple government bodies, perhaps the most formidable being the California Coastal Commission.The long, thin drop to the soil below, as well as the required street-level garage, necessitated a five-story house. And neither of those obstacles takes into account that the homeowner bought the house during its construction from a different owner who had decidedly different requirements, not to mention taste. “Vertical circulation was challenging, to say the least,” says Conrad. “We got past that hurdle by using a commercial elevator. The other challenge was how to incorporate the different uses on five levels in a way that made sense. We did this for our original clients, a family with four kids.”
; function voidFunc() { } voidFunc();) |
; function voidFunc() { } voidFunc();) |
Kristin Nugent
310.880.1500
www.kristinnugent.com
James Conrad Architects and Conrad Development
949.497.0200
; function voidFunc() { } voidFunc();){kind=link}
; function voidFunc() { } voidFunc();){kind=link}