Capistrano Beach, CA

Cost & Scope: withheld

Completion Date: 1995

This house on the beach sits on a narrow lot, an "urban" lot with minimal side yard setbacks. The charge to the architect was to maximize space and to most fully exploit the presence of the beach and ocean and the dramatic vistas they afford. The solution was to create a grand,curved, processional datum wall which establishes appropriate degrees of privacy and vitiates (along with the shifted axis) the straight jacket of the site geometry. The public zone then is framed, opened, and dematerialized as object, making it both of and apart from the beach.