Los Angeles, shaped historically by decades of sprawling residential development, has been defined more recently by an acute housing crisis. In the heart of the city, on an improbable site, Casa Torre creates a new residence for a young family by doing the unexpected, especially in this horizontal metropolis—by building up.

In a neighborhood of individual residences, this surprising opportunity arose from a gap discovered in zoning codes. A new structure could be built at the rear of a developed lot mid-block: not an accessory dwelling unit, but a second home. Given the modest footprint available—just 18 by 30 feet—this critical distinction allows the residence to rise more than 40 feet to four stories, providing the volume required for the home’s interior as well as expansive views, which define the design and how it is experienced.

A blue-black monolith rising above the neighborhood, Casa Torre, or Tower House, invites curiosity and wonder. Comprised of conjoined twin volumes, one taller, one wider, the structure widens as it rises before tapering skyward. An idiosyncratic amalgam that is simultaneously singular and multiple, the resulting form and its details continue to unfold as a viewer circumnavigates its base. Viewed from a distance, the anomalous silhouette takes on a nearly anthropomorphic character, at once eccentric and enigmatic.

Stacking four distinct spatial typologies one on the next, the home condenses an expansive range of experiences within its modest, 1,600 square foot interior. At the ground level, a two-car garage creates a portal through the structure, the darkened mass of the residence above levitating over this lit void below. Rising from the canted entryway at one corner, a stair beckons upward, illuminated by a constellation of apertures on the southern façade. Beyond the entry, the residence’s second level is dedicated to private rooms for the family, including bedrooms and a shared bath. Finished in white oak with windows overlooking the surrounding tree canopy, these more intimately scaled spaces feel akin to a treehouse, with elevated views and dappled light throughout.

Arriving at the third level, the home expands dramatically. These more public spaces, including the living room, kitchen, and a lounge which doubles as a guest room, open to each other and the city beyond, with sweeping vistas on three sides. A broad stair angles upward, the steel rods of the adjacent guard stretching from step to ceiling, a delicate filigree drawing the eye upward. Custom black steel pendants hang overhead, denoting a compositional figure of shape and line akin to Kandinsky or Miró. The uppermost landing widens to provide a nook for a small home office before continuing to a broad roof terrace with panoramic views.

Refined in its detailing and restrained in its palette, the minimalist interior amplifies the volumetric interplay of space and light, poché and perspective, surface and structure. It is an in-between experience—between the distinct character of the residence’s four levels and how they extend above or below; how each room interlocks with or dissolves into the next; and in the interplay between the stepped, orthogonal volumes of the interior and the angled form of the exterior envelope; as well as the apertures that link the two inside to out.

On the aluminum-sheathed exterior, standing seams are drawn across each façade, an echoing rhythm of line and shadow. Cut on the bias, these taut, repeated pleats fold from one face to the next, gesturing up and up again. An irregular constellation of windows large and small punctuate the composition, pulled forward or recessed, sharp lines of dark metal edging and underlining their illuminated figures. Functional elements serve as the grace notes in the arrangement: the punctuation of a single sconce; the stepped contours of repeated ladder rungs; and in three stacked vents, a kind of ellipsis.

As day gives way to night, the home’s darkened faces rise above the surrounding neighborhood, silhouetted against the skyline. Domestic scenes can be glimpsed from within, cut out and stacked, one after the other, floating above the homes below. In a state and city where accessory dwelling units and lot splits have offered opportunities for providing needed housing, Casa Torre opens a new window for the future of residential development in Los Angeles—one less sprawling, one growing not out, but up.

S E R V I C E S

Architecture, Interiors, Lighting, Landscape, & Construction Management

T E A M

IDG | Structural Engineering