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"View Slideshow\n\nBiomorphic, cast-resin modern it isn&amp;#39;t,&amp;quot; Asher Waldfogel says of his residence, stating not so much the obvious (its geometrically precise massing is vastly divergent from the computer-modeled free-form spaces and surfaces of trendy &amp;quot;blob&amp;quot; architecture) as his allowance for the traditional design mien of the neighborhood in which it was just built.\n\nWaldfogel, a technology industry entrepreneur, and his wife, Helyn MacLean, had known since attending school in Massachusetts\u2014where they were exposed to architecture of the Bauhaus school\u2014that someday they would have a modernist house: &amp;quot;It was,&amp;quot; he says, &amp;quot;never a question.&amp;quot; They moved to Palo Alto, California, a university town that, Waldfogel comments, had been &amp;quot;fairly receptive&amp;quot; to the new architecture of the 1950s and 1960s. &amp;quot;But there&amp;#39;s a limit to what you can do in the name of modernism in older communities. For ourselves, we had to build in this idiom. For the city, it had to be contextual.&amp;quot;\n\n&amp;quot;In the juxtaposition of a late-19th-century rug and a Nakashima bench and Kjaerholm chairs in the living room, you see a dialogue on modernism.&amp;quot;\n\nCalifornia modern. Contextual. The portfolio of Culver City-based Steven Ehrlich Architects, studded with allusions to West Coast demigods R. M. Schindler and Richard Neutra (the firm had done a sensitive addition to a Neutra house in Santa Monica nearly a decade ago), aptly found its way to the couple. &amp;quot;The ideas of both architects ebb and flow in my work,&amp;quot; Ehrlich says. &amp;quot;Schindler had more interest in exploring materiality issues, while Neutra focused on indoor-outdoor relationships. I like to think that, as with theirs, my buildings follow a clear logic.&amp;quot;\n\nThe 8,000-square-foot house that Ehrlich designed for Waldfogel and MacLean radiates outward in a pinwheel plan, opening on all sides and graciously breaking down in scale as it approaches the street. Two parallel wings with end quadrants\u2014a motor court, an entrance/dining court, a large garden off the living room and a pool terrace extending from the kitchen and family room\u2014fulfill the desire of the couple, who have a young daughter, for discrete formal and informal living zones. The plan is highlighted by interior spaces that engage the landscape through the architect&amp;#39;s use of pocketing glass doors, mitered-glass corners (a Schindler device that emphasizes the pinwheel concept), metal overhangs of various depths and limestone floors that continue from inside out.\n\nThe north (living room, study) and south (kitchen, family room) wings are linked by a translucent glass bridge situated between the double-height dining room and a dynamic stainless-steel stair, which leads to a finished, light-filled basement. Overhead, the stair and another glass bridge separate the master suite, and a second study, from three bedrooms and baths. The upper-level rooms are encased in two white-stucco boxes that appear to float above blocks of mahogany below; the horizontality of the wood, especially where it frames and articulates several series of glass planes, acts to relieve the complexity of the house&amp;#39;s massing. Rheinzink flat roofs\u2014the &amp;quot;spatial connective tissue,&amp;quot; in Ehrlich&amp;#39;s terms\u2014cantilever from the fa\u00E7ades and become softly reflective ceilings in the interior.\n\nA spinelike, poured-in-place-concrete wall that is first seen flanking the front door runs perpendicular (north-south) to the wings, bisecting and organizing the circulation of the residence. As well as providing space for built-in seating and cabinetry, the concrete axial wall, with its platforms, perforations and shelving, makes generous display areas for art and objects. Waldfogel saw the concrete itself as &amp;quot;structural mud\u2014a nice reference to the California adobe.&amp;quot; Noting that it is composed of sand, he says: &amp;quot;Building in Silicon valley with silica always struck me as appropriate.&amp;quot;\n\nRheinzink flat roofs\u2014the &amp;quot;spatial connective tissue&amp;quot;\u2014cantilever from the fa\u00E7ades and become softly reflective ceilings in the interior.\n\nWaldfogel reveals that he and MacLean spent so much time studying and drawing the building during design and construction, they &amp;quot;anticipated how everything would play against each other, every detail, every seam.&amp;quot; Ehrlich and project architect Takashi Yanai encouraged the owners&amp;#39; involvement; at the same time they prepared them for certain inevitabilities. &amp;quot;One of the big points I made to Asher in particular was that there are aspects of materiality that you can&amp;#39;t control fully, whether it&amp;#39;s the liquid-stone nature of the concrete pour or the expression of the grain in mahogany,&amp;quot; Ehrlich says. &amp;quot;Even the Rheinzink is a natural, weathering surface. Both he and Helyn came to appreciate that the materials, in their variations, have an unpredictable kind of beauty.&amp;quot;\n\nMacLean and Waldfogel are collectors who had long been clients (acquiring largely American ceramics and furniture) of Mike Witt&amp;#39;s 20th-century decorative and fine-arts business in Boston. After having started, without success, with two other West Coast interior designers, the couple asked Witt, who had never taken on an entire residence, to resolve the furnishing of their house. &amp;quot;Going in, the pressure was enormous,&amp;quot; he admits. &amp;quot;But because of our previous explorations together, they knew that my solution wasn&amp;#39;t going to be a Mies daybed and Le Corbusier lounge chairs. We were all after something far more thoughtful, far less automatic.\n\n&amp;quot;Integral to my design plan were our ongoing discussions about what modernism is: about what it means for an object to be, or be perceived as, modern. In the juxtaposition of a late-19th-century tieback rug and a Nakashima bench and Kjaerholm chairs in the living room alone, you see a dialogue on modernism\u2014which concludes that objects of integrity, no matter what century they&amp;#39;re from, can be congruous. The onus on me was, here&amp;#39;s a structure that could exist in the world as a beautiful thing without anything in it. Every piece I brought in had to address the owners&amp;#39; day-to-day needs and be personally meaningful to them\u2014as well as add a sensitive layer to the architecture.&amp;quot;\n\nThe house radiates outward in a pinwheel plan, opening on all sides and graciously breaking down in scale as it approaches the street.\n\nAlso complementary to the overall design is the work of Willett Moss, of Conger Moss Guillard Landscape Architecture. &amp;quot;Again,&amp;quot; says Waldfogel, &amp;quot;we didn&amp;#39;t want the spiky yuccas, the clich\u00E9d modern plants. Willett developed his own vocabulary, a much more natural, less serious garden plan than you would expect for such a rectilinear building. The landscape exists in and of itself and goes beyond being a response to the architecture. Parts of it, including what is seen from the street, are more traditional than not.&amp;quot; Or, put another way: contextual."^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
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