Palms Residence: House Inside a Garden
Location: Venice, California | Architects: Tom Kundig (Olson Kundig)
Interior Designers: Gillian Wynn | Landscape Designers: Russ Cletta Design Studio
Photography: Trevor Tondro
Rather than talking about a house with a garden, Gillian Wynn, interior designer and home owner of Palms Residence in Venice, California, says, “I actually like to think of this as a house set inside a garden.”
Indeed, for Wynn, it was the property’s prolific greenery that attracted her to it and confirmed that it would be the perfect spot for her new home. After acquiring the park-like plot in the Los Angeles neighborhood, Wynn met on location with architect Tom Kundig to discuss how the residence would interact with the natural surroundings.
Kundig, Principal and Founder at Olson Kundig, specializes in designing architectural experiences that allow for a seamless intermingling of exterior spaces with interior. For the Palms Residence, the two designers were able to collaborate in creating a minimalist home that envelops the beauty and power of the garden.
Natural Light in Architecture
According to Wynn, her location in Venice not only provides a paradise-like climate, but it allows for an extraordinary experience of light. “The beautiful thing about living in Venice is the quality of light,” Wynn stated. “There’s just no place in the world that has this particular light. It’s magical from the moment the sun rises until it sets.”
Fenestration obviously plays a key role in allowing any structure to interact effectively with its surroundings and to embellish the effects of natural light in the architecture. With a garden house like Palms Residence, this choreography is essential to the experience. Windows and doors not only allow for natural light to play its vital role in the home, but they make it possible for the residents to physically and visually move from inside to outside and vice versa.
The designers of Palms Residence chose thermally broken Bronze-Arte windows and doors from Dynamic Fenestration. Architectural bronze not only offers unmatched longevity and an unsurpassed elemental aesthetic, but the discreet expression of the fenestration optimizes the experience of blurring the lines between the interior and exterior spaces.
According to Kundig, the thin profile of the bronze windows picks up the horizon lines of the garden and helps to background the interior in order to feature the exterior. In this way, he says that the fenestration allows the house to effectively disappear into the garden.
The black-framed Bronze-Arte windows and doors also cooperate beautifully with the modest and simple palette of Palms Residence, providing contrast to the lively colors of the garden. Indeed, the choice of bronze brings a level of prestige and individuality to this architectural experience that clearly speaks the language of sanctuary and serenity.
The home and its fenestration are also designed in such a way that there are multiple ways to open and close the spaces, providing various avenues for entry and exit. Oversized windows and expansive sliding doors allow the architecture to transform and come alive.
Media:
Article at The Local Project, thelocalproject.com.au
Article at Designsetter, designsetter.de
Article at Dwell, dwell.com
