Sound Studio 45 ADU Construction in progress
Sound Studio 45 ADU Construction in progress
We love ADU’s because they spawn imagination. Rarely are we ever presented with a single use for an ADU. Unlike a developer who makes a single product to sell and then moves on, our ADUs are dreamed up and curated by a real stakeholder: the homeowner. They often live on the same property or are at least nearby. They have a long-term stake in the project, meaning they can realize the flexible uses the ADU provides over a long time, even generations. The ADU is a grassroots approach to Missing Middle Housing. Ground up, decentralized and personal.
We have received several requests for an ADU to be both a house and sound studio. We are very excited to see this one built for a musician who also wants to stay close to family living in the primary residence. With a pool to boot and close to the very hip and walkable Atwater Village, it’s a great family setup.
The sound requirements for the project also encouraged us to deploy one of our favorite new moves: the 45-degree angle! In our persistent search for how to make small spaces feel larger, we thought about the humble box. We are constantly pulling apart the box, lightening it with clerestory (high) windows, opening it to the outside, and shifting the boxes past one another. While visiting a house where the doors were at the corners of a boxy room, it dawned on us that entering the corner of the room provides the longest angle. That the longest line within a box is the hypotenuse of the two triangles that divide it. Nerdy, I know.
But it works. The 45 expands spaces, creates the widest openings possible, and when placed within an orthogonal world, angles the eye away from things. It also diffuses sound, perfect for young musicians. And once we did it, we started to see the 45 in the work of many great architects. Wright, Schindler, Lautner, Kahn all embraced the 45.
There are a few other spatial enlarging moves going on here as well. A sequencing spatial narrative gets you to think at each moment. Each thought takes time. It’s a common Japanese temple architecture technique. Upon entering this ADU you enter a hall, followed by a 45-degree skylight junction (more on that in a moment), a series of sliding panels and then an opening into the main sound room at the corner. Each is a moment, sometimes each moment unfolds into a different perception. Each thought, like a comma, slows down the reading. The sliding doors alter the shape of the space, changing its character. We spent extra time detailing the 45-degree skylight junction as a “Poor Man’s Turrell,” angling the flanges toward a clear piece of glass open to the sky. It frames a sky painting that changes with the natural light. At night the light source will reverse with color-changing LEDs shining back up. Within just 1,000 square feet, the ADU serves many functions and will serve the family for a long time to come.
