Architects collaborate with artist on California house

Spectral Bridge House santa monica — Architects Ehrlich Yanai Rhee Chaney have collaborated with artist Johannes Girardoni on the Spectral Bridge House, a new residential project in Santa Monica, USA.

(Image credit: Matthew Millman)

A collaborative, multi-disciplinary approach is often what elevates a project to the next level, and this is exactly what happened with this newly completed residential project in Venice, CA, in the USA's West Coast. The scheme, entitled Spectral Bridge House, was a close collaboration between LA based architects Ehrlich Yanai Rhee Chaney and artist Johannes Girardoni.

The team envisioned the spaces as a ‘vessel for living and art', they explain. In order to achieve their cohesive and striking design, the architects and artist worked on a house comprised of three interconnected volumes. These span two floors and are strengthened visually by irregular shapes and orientations, which add dynamism to the composition.

The ground level is kept open and flowing, bridging indoors and outdoors through generous openings towards the garden, decking and pool, and cladding in charred black shou sugi ban. The upper level is in a calming white stucco box and contains mostly private spaces.

What brings everything together though is Girardoni's artwork – a glass atrium bridge containing a ‘an “art lounge” for immersion in coloured light and sound baths'. The piece evolves and changes over time, timed to the sunset and sunrise in a specially planned colour sequence. The experience merges art and life in a fascinating, immersive interior that is never exactly the same.

‘The in-situ sculpture is integral to the architecture and has informed the design of the house. The bridge forms a spine that connects three separate structures', explains the team.

‘Inside Spectral Bridge acts as a filter to the outside world. As night falls, the installation first veils the exterior, then completely disengages from the outside, creating a highly immersive artwork that transforms the viewer’s experience of the site and the architecture on a continual basis. On the inside, Spectral Bridge is an immersive light and sound sculpture in dynamic play with its viewers, the architecture and the site.'

Spectral Bridge House artist Johannes Girardoni

INFORMATION

For more information visit the Ehrlich Yanai Rhee Chaney website and the Johannes Girardoni website

TOPICS

Ellie Stathaki is the Architecture & Environment Director at Wallpaper*. She trained as an architect at the Aristotle University of Thessaloniki in Greece and studied architectural history at the Bartlett in London. Now an established journalist, she has been a member of the Wallpaper* team since 2006, visiting buildings across the globe and interviewing leading architects such as Tadao Ando and Rem Koolhaas. Ellie has also taken part in judging panels, moderated events, curated shows and contributed in books, such as The Contemporary House (Thames & Hudson, 2018), Glenn Sestig Architecture Diary (2020) and House London (2022).