Breve New Houses showcases thirty of the most exciting new houses and five daring projects from southern California, a region that has always been a crucible for experimentation in residential design. They express the needs and desires of fearless individuals who decided to please themselves, flout conventional wisdom, and collaborate with talented architects. They respond to their varied sites - from the canyons of Santa Barbara south to the mountains of San Diego County; to slivers of the oceanfront, precipitous slopes, leafv suburban estates and bustling commercial streets. Modest or grand, expansive or tightly-compressed, angular or sensuously curved, they offer a cross-section of the best of contemporary design, and are linked only by their openness to nature and the benign.climate.

Breve New Houses showcases thirty of the most exciting new houses and five daring projects from southern California, a region that has always been a crucible for experimentation in residential design. They express the needs and desires of fearless individuals who decided to please themselves, flout conventional wisdom, and collaborate with talented architects. They respond to their varied sites - from the canyons of Santa Barbara south to the mountains of San Diego County; to slivers of the oceanfront, precipitous slopes, leafv suburban estates and bustling commercial streets. Modest or grand, expansive or tightly-compressed, angular or sensuously curved, they offer a cross-section of the best of contemporary design, and are linked only by their openness to nature and the benign.climate.

Here are the successors to Richard Neutra and R. M. Schindler, John Lautner and Frank Gehrv: architects wno break out of the box to create houses that express their vision for clients and, sometimes, themselves. From serene white volumes to shifting geometries and bold expressions of structure; from houses that engage the landscape or beach to those that turn confined lots to advantage, these are models of creative design. They are sensitive to the environment, the craving for shelter and escape - there's no wasted space, no striving to impress. They speak to the present, not to some fantasy of the past, and they offer an appealing alternative to claustrophobic historieism and stamped-out ornament. Breve New Houses should appeal to everyone who has thought of making a fresh start in life by designing, or buying, a one-of-a-kind house.

List of Houses

introduction: Out of the Box

SHIFTING GEOMETRIES

SERENE VOLUMES

DYNAMIC STRUCTURES

OCEAN FRONTAGE

ENGAGING THE LANDSCAPE

CONFINED LOTS

RADICAL VISIONS

List of Featured Architects

Acknowledgments

Photo Credits