UYEMURA RESIDENCE
This house employs Asian motifs to reflect the Japanese American heritage of our client. The continuous surface of an origami-like roof floats above the ground. It shapes and responds to the character of the 3 spaces it shelters: gently arcing above the great room, folding above the master bedroom suite and forming a conventional gable over the bedroom/garage wing. Shoji-like garage doors 'roll' on a cantilevered steel beam. The origami roof extends into the interior forming an entry canopy. Exterior wall and ceiling materials are brought into the interior to form a seamless continuity between inside and outside. A slanted purple plaster wall divides the master bedroom from the great room in such a way as to create the illusion of a single uninterrupted volume between the two. A floor to ceiling glass wall extends along the entire length of the house opening it to the expansive ocean vista, coastline and Catalina Island and Newport Harbor. Dining and Tatami Rooms open to a walled garden, which provides outdoor privacy and an alternative to the expansive ocean vista.
Operable windows at floor and ceiling on opposite sides of the great room create a natural convection and continuous cross ventilation. A radiant heated warm floor of polished concrete floor extends throughout all rooms allowing for easy maintenance as well as passive solar temperature control.
Newport Beach, CA
1998 American Architecture Award, Chicago Athenaeum
1997 Los Angeles American Institute Architects Design Award
1997 Orange County American Institute Architects Merit Award
1994 Los Angeles American Institute Architects Design Award