Eric Owen Moss reveals his corner-bending A+M private residence in the Pacific Palisades | News

Eric Owen Moss has shared photos of his self-designed private residence overlooking the coastline on a small 30’ by 50’ plot in Los Angeles’ beach-adjacent Pacific Palisades neighborhood. 

The former SCI-Arc Director’s new A+M home is inspired by the Case Study homes published by John Entenza in Arts & Architecture magazine from the mid-1940s through the early-60s and the later direction of Barbara Goldstein, who featured Moss’ early Petal House renovation in that same publication’s pages in 1983.

Per the architect, the four-story, 1,950-square-foot house is “organized around a central sky-lit atrium that makes the transformation in shape visible on the west side and provides floor-to-ceiling glazing as one makes their way up the stairs on the east side.”

“The perimeter walls of the building are in continuous transformation between the two plan shapes — the roof line and the ground line. The change in shape is particularly evident at the building corners which begin at a 90-degree angle at the roof and end as a constant 10-foot radius at the ground. The resultant compound-curving exterior wall profiles are produced by CNC milling all the exterior studs of the house.”  

“The milled lumber was produced through a direct-to-fabrication process from a Rhino 3D model, delivered on site in sequence with part numbers assigned to each individual framing component, and then erected as a kit of parts.”

“After precisely producing this complex wall profile with the framing, it was important to preserve that shape with as little modification, offset, or tooling as possible. We used an industrial coating called polyurea as a single-component covering that provided both waterproofing and exterior finish directly over the wood frame and OSB sheathing. This exterior coating is only ¼” thick, but provides waterproofing, a 300% elongation, and is impact resistant. As far as we know, this is the first time this material has been used in this type of residential application.”

An additional street-level intervention has also brought the structure up to code with the city’s off-street parking requirement, while simultaneously forming the soffit base on top of which theater seating can be placed to provide for a new drop-down video screen theater space on the second floor. 

In a statement, Moss said he sees the project as a more a “personalized conception of contemporary architecture.” 

Find more photographs and drawings in the image gallery below.