Architecture firm, Beijing and Los Angeles-based, MAD Architects has released photography of the firm's Garden House project, an 18-unit luxury residential development located in Los Angeles that offers "a rebuttal to the stereotypical cubic-box living environments of high-density cities across the world," according to the architects.

The mixed-use complex contains commercial spaces along the ground floor above, two floors are developed with a facade characterized by a wall with a vertical garden and the building is finished with a stack of residential units with house-shaped geometries.
According to Ma Yansong, 45 and founder of MAD architects the project was inspired by the "hillside village" typology, the project develops a cluster of metal panel-wrapped homes, reflecting their pitched roof configurations, and that overlook a central courtyard situated at the center of the building.

The intermediate levels of the building, meanwhile, are wrapped in a verdant grow wall studded with drought tolerant plants that will exist as one of the largest such installations in the world when fully up and running.

Units surrounding the courtyard enjoy a ground-level grove of trees and water conveying the experience of a “secret garden". All feature glass exposures looking into the central space "with careful consideration given to the distance, orientation, and arrangement of balconies overlooking the courtyard," said architects.
 
“Los Angeles and Beverly Hills are highly modernized and developed. Their residences on the hills seemingly coexist with the urban environment. However, they also see enclosed movement at their core. The commune connection between the urban environment and nature is isolated. What new perspectives, and new value, can we bring to Los Angeles? Perhaps, we can create a hill in the urban context, so people can live on it and make it a village. This place will be half urban, half nature. This can offer an interesting response to Beverly Hills: a neighborhood which is often carefully organized and maintained, now with a witty, playful new resident.”
MAD Principal Ma Yansong
Read more
Read less

More information

Label
Architects
Text
MAD Architects. Principal.- Ma Yansong, Dang Qun, Yosuke Hayano. Associate partners in charge.- Flora Lee, Dixon Lu.
+ + copy Created with Sketch.
- + copy Created with Sketch.
Label
Project team
Text
Li Guangchong, Jon Kontuly, Joanna Tan, Chris Hung-Yu Chen, Wenshan Xie, Cesar D Pena Del Rey, Jeffrey Miner
+ + copy Created with Sketch.
- + copy Created with Sketch.
Label
Collaborators
Text
Executive architect.- Gruen Associates
Structural engineer.- John Labib + Associates (JLA)
MEP engineer.- Breen Engineering Inc.
Interior design.- Rottet Studio
Civil engineering.- Kimley-Horn and Associates, Inc.
Green wall specialist.- Seasons Landscape.
Architect of Record and landscape architect.- Gruen Associates.
+ + copy Created with Sketch.
- + copy Created with Sketch.
Label
Client
Text
Palisades Capital Partners LLC.
+ + copy Created with Sketch.
- + copy Created with Sketch.
Label
General constructor
Text
DHC Builders, Inc.
+ + copy Created with Sketch.
- + copy Created with Sketch.
Label
Area
Text
Site area.-: 2,400 sqm / 25,833 sqf
Building area.- 4,460 sqm / 48,007 sqf project.
Building height.- 18 m / 59 ft
+ + copy Created with Sketch.
- + copy Created with Sketch.
Label
Dates
Text
2013-2020.
+ + copy Created with Sketch.
- + copy Created with Sketch.
Label
Location
Text
Along Wilshire Boulevard at Stanley, about three blocks west of the Saban Theatre. Beverly Hills. LA. USA.
+ + copy Created with Sketch.
- + copy Created with Sketch.
Label
Photography
+ + copy Created with Sketch.
- + copy Created with Sketch.

Beijing-born architect Ma Yansong is recognized as an important voice in a new generation of architects. Since the founding of MAD in 2004, his works in architecture and art have been widely published and exhibited. He graduated from the Beijing Institute of Civil Engineering and Architecture. Ma attended Yale University after receiving the American Institute of Architects Scholarship for Advanced Architecture Research in 2001 and holds a masters degree in Architecture from Yale. He has since taught architecture at the Central Academy of Fine Arts in Beijing.

Ma Yansong was awarded the 2006 Architecture League Young Architects Award. In 2008 he was selected as one of the twenty most influential Young Architects today by ICON magazine and Fast Company named him one of the ten most creative people in architecture in 2009. In 2010 he became the first architect from China to receive a RIBA fellowship.

“I work with emotion and with the context. When I design a building, I close my eyes and feel as if I saw a virtual world which lays half way between the city, the nature and the land. It goes from large scale to small scale. Many things travel in front of my eyes; I feel them and try to find the way to express my feelings. The language I use is the least important of it all. It does not matter whether they are straight lines, curves... I only intend for people to feel the same or to find something unexpected” says Ma Yansong. “MAD is an attitude, a posture towards architecture, towards society. Through our work we want people to be inspired by a place through local nature, time and space”, he states.

Photo © Daniel J.Allen

Read more

MAD Office, Beijing, China. MAD is a Beijing-based architecture design office dedicated to creating innovative projects. The firm combines a sophisticated design philosophy with advanced technology in addressing and furthering issues in contemporary architecture and urbanity.

The firm has been the recipient of numerous awards including the 2006 Architectural League of New York's Young Architects Forum Award.

MAD's ongoing projects include the international competition-winning Absolute Tower in Toronto, Canada; The Tianjin Sinosteel International Plaza, a 320M tall tower in Tianjin, China; the Mongolian Museum in Inner Mongolia, China, and a private villa in Copenhagen, Denmark.

The firm has also won numerous international design competitions, including the 2006 Absolute Tower Competition in Toronto; the 2005 Solar Plaza Competition in Guangzhou, China, and the 2004 Shanghai National Software Outsourcing Base.

MAD's work has been published worldwide, and the office has also presented its designs in a series of exhibitions. In 2006, MAD was shown at the ‘MAD in China' exhibition in Venice during the Architecture Biennial, and the ‘MAD Under Construction' exhibition at the Tokyo Gallery in Beijing. In March of 2007, MAD will be shown at ‘MAD.exe' an exhibition at the Danish Architecture Centre in Copenhagen, Denmark.

Ma Yansong, Yosuke Hayano and Qun Dand.

Read more
Published on: August 26, 2020
Cite: "Nature and Experimental density in LA. Garden House by MAD Architects" METALOCUS. Accessed
<https://www.metalocus.es/en/news/nature-and-experimental-density-la-garden-house-mad-architects> ISSN 1139-6415
Loading content ...
Loading content ...
Loading content ...
Loading content ...
Loading content ...
Loading content ...
Loading content ...
Loading content ...
Loading content ...
Loading content ...
Loading content ...
Loading content ...
Loading content ...
Loading content ...
Loading content ...
Loading content ...
Loading content ...
Loading content ...
Loading content ...
Loading content ...
Loading content ...
Loading content ...
Loading content ...
Loading content ...
Loading content ...
Loading content ...
Loading content ...
Loading content ...
Loading content ...
Loading content ...
Loading content ...
Loading content ...
Loading content ...
Loading content ...
Loading content ...
Loading content ...
Loading content ...
Loading content ...
Loading content ...
Loading content ...
Loading content ...
Loading content ...
Loading content ...
Loading content ...
Loading content ...
Loading content ...
Loading content ...
Loading content ...
Loading content ...
Loading content ...
Loading content ...
Loading content ...
Loading content ...
Loading content ...