Gaines Landaverde Residence, Los Angeles, California

The contemporary artist Charles Gaines and his wife the Roxana Landaverde asked us to undertake a small addition and “face-lift” of their home in Mount Washington. Their primary motivation was enlarging the living space to accommodate Charles' piano. We took this opportunity to also rework the entry sequence and to completely redesign the front of the house. For the front elevation we developed a grid of perforated metal screens at various scales that loosely reference the grids that the artist employs in his own work. These screens diffuse the shape of the original house and at the same time create a register for the life going on inside.

Dwell Magazine's June 2025 issue includes a story about the house we designed for Charles Gaines and Roxana Landaverde. The piece titled, "A Renowned Artist’s L.A. Renovation Added a Distinct Facade—and Kicked Off a Much Bigger Project" written by Dwell editor William Hanley includes a 10-page spread and the front cover!

William Hanley writes, "When you see them from the street, the perforated white metal screens seem a little on the nose. Layered onto the facade of the house that artist Charles Gaines and his wife, Roxana Landaverde, a historian focusing on Mesoamerican and Mexican art, are renovating, they look conspicuously like the grids that form the basis of Charles’s celebrated work. "I never really thought about it," he says of the resemblance as we prepare to tour the house on a beautiful Los Angeles day in April. I’m not sure I believe him. But in any case, the screens are the unifying element in what has become an ambitious building project."

Status: Built

Size: 125 SF Front Addition

Project Team: Peter Tolkin, Sarah Lorenzen, Trenman Yau, Albert Escobar, Denise Nugent

Engineers: Nous Engineering (Structural)

Consultants: Alternative Energy Systems (Energy)