Kenner Studio

LOS ANGELES, California

The exterior of this studio for a documentary filmmaker responds to the scale and relationship to an established garden and an historic main residence. Its interior addresses the programmatic need for compartmentalization, sound and light control on the one hand, and the desire for openness and visual connectivity on the other.

Our strategy highlights the readings of skin versus structure, envelop versus infill. The plywood ceiling of the ground floor garden room distinguishes itself from the envelop by stopping short of one edge to reveal a light source, and rising to become the wall of an upper floor office like a drawer within a cabinet. A gabled ceiling bridges over office spaces separated only by cabinetry and glass. Ipe wood slates over the lower portions of the building evoke the structural lightness of a garden lath house.

PHOTOS: Deborah Bird