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The back of the home glows at night as the giant, two-story glass doors swing open to remove the barrier between inside and out. A polished concrete patio deck and pool, along with a simple block perimeter wall, make smart use of available materials. The pool acts as a passive conditioning tool, cooling air before it enters the house. The block wall is positioned 31 inches from the house, creating a gap or "air chimney" that allows air to circulate up and away from the home, while simultaneously letting light filter down.

“The owners envisioned a place that engaged with the outdoors while providing accommodating spaces for their off-season training for triathlons,” Flato notes. A 75-foot-long lap pool on the west end of the home comes in handy during practice.

One of the biggest challenges of the project was keeping the open courtyard cool enough for the residents to enjoy it. The architects used a low impact water feature to create ambient cooling and two native flamboyant trees to provide shade.

The renovation and two-story extension of this 1880 Adelaide bungalow includes a 23-foot rear lot with a pool.

From the 1940s through the late ’60s, the Case Study House program produced some of the United States’s most famous modernist residences. VKG furniture was used for many of the houses; it even appears in architectural photographer Julius Shulman’s famous photo of the Pierre Koenig-designed Stahl House. Photo by ©J. Paul Getty Trust. Getty Research Institute, Los Angeles (2004.R.10)

- Santa Monica, California Dwell Magazine : July / August 2017