La Mesa Residence
Perched on a Santa Monica hillside above the Riviera Country Club this private residence is more than its fortified street presence suggests. Designed as a series of indoor and outdoor rooms accessed through a labyrinth of planar walls, a stroll through this home takes you past tactile stone walls of a private front entry courtyard, natural day lit surfaces of a double-volume central gallery and out the rear to a sculpted terrace overlooking sprawling green fairways of the golf links.
Status: Completed in 2003
Project Size: 14,000 s.f.
Architectural Team: Rocky Rockefeller, AIA, Michael Hricak, FAIA
Christopher Kempel, AIA, Moritz Hammer
This simple builder’s house was built in the 1940s and a poorly conceived addition in the 1960s drastically altered its appearance. The firm's assignment was to keep the existing foundation and structure but change its aesthetic and spatial configuration. The owners had lived in this beach-side community most of their lives and were hoping to achieve something that felt less like a house by the beach, and more like a beach house. With this in mind, the architects created a home with a stronger connection to the outdoors, bathed in natural light, informal, and very comfortable.
Status: Completed in 2000
Project Size: 3,500 s.f.
Architectural Team: Rocky Rockefeller, AIA, Brian Pera, Christopher Kempel, AIA, Peter Rittner, Anna Gay Del Vescova
Inheriting the project from a client frustrated with their former architect, rPA was called upon to salvage a design that wasn’t theirs. Using the formerly established programmatic arrangement, rPA adjusted and improved a design that initially lacked order and balance. The project was carried through construction documents in record time. The result was a pragmatic and attractive arrangement that skillfully maneuvered a compact and steep site.
Status: Under Construction
Project Size: 3,953 s.f.
Architectural Team: Christopher Kempel, AIA, Rocky Rockefeller, AIA,
Keith Ireland, AIA, Anthony Laney