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BEYNON RESIDENCE / AGUA DULCE, CALIFORNIA

PROGRAM: Single-family residence; a retirement home with a studio/workshop and detatched out-buildings

SIZE: 8,650 sq. ft., including barn and garage

COMPLETION: February 2007

NOTES: Pre-engineered metal building systems, including structure and cladding; thermal-pane sliding wall system, Type-V interior fit-out installed on concrete slab foundations.

PROJECT TEXT: J,P:A was approached to design a retirement home and studio for a graphic designer and his artist wife on 80 acres, north of Los Angeles. Since this was for retirement, cost was a major consideration. The clients challenged the architects to use pre-engineered metal buildings as the basis of the design to save money. Unable to leave well enough alone, the architects ran off into left field with this idea, exploring the intentional misuse of the structural frame that is the heart of such pre-engineered products. The architects recognized that the structural properties would not be compromised in applications that respected the essential working-orientation of the steel bents, and so proposed a design based on the slightest variations of the bents themselves—tilting gestalt to the cladding—set off by the classic glazing-as-void move, in order to produce a restrained yet distinctive geometry that in no way recalls the clichéd inexpensiveness or industrial character of the building components.