Hollywood Renovation: Week 1
In this new, exclusive series for Dwell.com, Linda Taalman of Taalman Koch Architecture will track the hands-on renovation of her and her partner's live-work space in Hollywood, California.
We have our weekend house in the desert, the off-grid itHouse (featured in the November 2008 issue of Dwell, online here), but we work in the city. Our office, Taalman Koch Architecture, is based in Los Angeles and I teach at Woodbury University just north of Hollywood. Having tested several models of living and working in the city, and having lived in many neighborhoods since our move to LA eight years ago, this spring we started looking for an optimized work space and pied-à-terre that could serve as a centralized city base. Both our apartment lease and our office lease were up and we were worn out by the daily commute between the two. Then a double unit became available for rent in the Craig Ellwood-designed Courtyard Apartments.
We first visited the Courtyard Apartments several years earlier— our friend Patricia lived in one of the units and we fell in love with its simple efficiency, and its ability to make living in central Hollywood feel like living the ideal indoor-outdoor Southern California lifestyle. Now, seeing the unit available for rent, we saw the building as a model for living in Los Angeles as it should have been: a simple 3,200-square-foot, two-story, four-unit block, each 800-square-foot unit with its own private courtyard.
View from street, photo 1953 (from Craig Ellwood, by Esther McCoy, Walker and Company, NY, 1968).
According to Esther McCoy, “The construction of the Courtyard Apartments in 1953 was a turning point... it was proof that [Ellwood] could simplify and at the same time enrich, that he could wring more out of a small budget and come closer to architecture..”
View of court from living room, 1953.
itHouse, view from court to bathroom.
Ellwood’s courtyard apartments are a perfect example of how small, beautiful spaces with gardens can be made without following the single family house model that still defines much of this city that is no longer viable.
Original 1952 plan of the building.
Since the apartment that was available for rent had two units back-to-back (two separate units had been joined some years prior by a previous owner), we could imagine fitting our fluctuating office of four to six people in it—plus being able to live here during the week with our 4 year old daughter. Perhaps to most people in Los Angeles, up to nine people sharing one 1,600-square-foot space sounds crazy, but after spending ten years in New York I saw a lot of potential.
The space would be on a rotating schedule, used for working by day and living by night, with overlaps in the morning and evening. And this was no ordinary 1,600-square-foot space. Small spaces work, if they are efficiently designed to perform on multiple levels. And since the space used to be two apartments, it now had two bathrooms and a powder room converted from one of the efficiency kitchens.
Alan Koch and Rebecca Rudolph contemplating how to design the workspace.
To make the courtyard apartment work we knew we would have to adapt, and the space also needs some adapting. We decided that these adaptations should be minimal, economical and reinforce the original Ellwood design elements.
As we are still renters, we are giving ourselves a small budget for improvements and creative license to come up with innovative solutions to the problems we encounter, making use of the collaborators we use in our architectural projects.
View from courtyard looking through glass.
Living in a small, modern apartment, with its open spaces and transparent walls, requires a fair amount of discipline and a generally minimalist lifestyle. With that in mind, we picked the few items that we thought we couldn’t live or work without and migrated once again.
View from upstairs looking to street.
With this move we are setting out to create the ideal live/work space, one more in touch with the paradise-climate of Los Angeles. We're hoping it will be a place to spend more time dreaming and designing, and less time driving.
Current existing conditions of the two joined units.
Articles
-
Taalman/Koch Renovation Recap
For the past six months, Linda Taalman of Taalman Koch Architecture has been blogging for Dwell.com about her hands-on renovation of her family's live-work rental apartment in Los Angeles. The…
-
Hollywood Renovation: Week 6
In this exclusive series for Dwell.com, Linda Taalman of Taalman Koch Architecture tracks the hands-on renovation of her and her partner's live-work space in Hollywood, California. Week 6:…
-
Hollywood Renovation: Week 8
In this exclusive series for Dwell.com, Linda Taalman of Taalman Koch Architecture tracks the hands-on renovation of her and her partner's live-work space in Hollywood, California. Week 8:…
Product
-
Los Angeles Times
Tigerman’s labor of love at the retrospective is a full-scale re-creation of the photoshoot for this classic Los Angeles Times cover from October 21, 1951, which featured a tableau of the…
Dwell Collections
-
A Look at Kitchen Renovations
A collection of some of our favorite kitchen renovations from our archives.
-
Dwell's Guide to Los Angeles
Though Dwell may be in NorCal, we still love a trip south to L.A., so take a tour with us as we map out the hot spots in one of the nation's hippest hubs. Text by Alissa Walker.
-
Modern Restaurants in Los Angeles
Chris Nichols, associate editor at Los Angeles Magazine, Googie expert, author, and all-around architectural steward, recommends modern Los Angeles restaurants that shouldn't be missed—even…
Tips
-
Stick Around during a Renovation
I learned during our kitchen renovation that it really is a full-time job. If you want it done right and according to your vision, and not that of your contractor, be available. Make sure every…
-
What Lies Beneath...the Cabinets
We needed a cheap way to update our 1970s kitchen cabinets, so we turned the cabinets inside-out to use the simple frame of the interior instead of the elaborate curvy countryish look of the…
Videos
-
New Prospects: The Sherman Residence
In this video accompanying our September 2011 My House story, architect Jeff Sherman guides us through his airy Brooklyn rowhouse—a onetime dilapidated dog kennel—which he painstakingly renovated…
-
Building Green in Harlem: A Green Brownstone?
In this video series, Dwell follows a New York couple with a passion for building green through the challenges—and triumphs—of renovation, from finding the design-build team to…
-
Dwell on Design 2011
Join us behind the scenes of Dwell on Design where 21,000 attendees gathered at the Los Angeles Convention center to discover the latest innovations in modern design.
Events
-
Los Angeles Meet The Architects Night
Join us for Meet the Architects Night, an evening of presentations from the architects of the homes featured at the 2011 Dwell Home Tours. Enjoy the evening at the new Gandia Blasco Los Angeles…
-
2012 Los Angeles Film Festival
Calling all cinephiles: The Los Angeles Film Festival takes place from June 14th to the 24th. Most of the screenings are at the Regal Cinemas L.A. Live with additional films and events at the Los…
-
MyhistoricLA—Preserving Los Angeles
Stop by the historic Los Angeles Central Library for a special citywide kickoff celebration of SurveyLA, Los Angeles’ first-ever comprehensive survey of its historic resources. Amateur…
Advertising
Advertising
Advertising
Related Products
-
Los Angeles Times
Tigerman’s labor of love at the…
Latest
-
05.23
Veliero Shelving by Cassina
In 1940, architect Franco Albini made a single model of his…
-
05.23
ICFF 2012: Picks from Javits Center
This week we're digging deep into our favorites objets de…
-
05.22
ICFF 2012 : Design Milk Presents
"Reinvention; Writing History in Aluminum" showcases a…
Follow
Dwell
Reloading tweets…
Love this series idea - can't wait to see how it turns out!
nice idea, but could you have chosen a different structure to radically alter? this is an important piece of architecture.
Good work, more of this needs to be done. Take a fall apart and bring it to its glory again. Modernism again.
Hey Linda, My sister Erin sent me your link and I really like what your doing! Thank you for finding inspiration in our father's work! -Adam
So great. Wish you were still closer to the east coast. I need your sensibilities badly.
Looks like the start of a great series; I'm digging back from week 11 to the start. Web design suggestion (from a nice-modernist usability perspective): In multi-episode pieces, give users a "Next Episode" or "Next Weekend" button at the bottom of the main content so they don't have to back up the previous index to click to the next chronological entry. The lack of this feature means I'm only about 10% likely to follow this story to the end, despite the fact that I really want follow this story. Bonus option: RSS feeds for multi-episode stories. Maybe I missed it. (You offer an RSS feed for comments on particular articles, so I assume this won't be hard to implement.)
Gutsy. Probably not the right moves on a building by a Case Study MOCA architect. While not approving personally I think they did a great job in language being as true as possible to Ellsworth. The further destruction of the landmark property is however sadly unfortunate, despite immediate necessity.
RSS Feed
Add a Comment