Light and lucid.

This extension of an existing house in Pacific Palisades elementalises domestic activity into a series of pavilions, infused with light and the presence of nature.

House extensions are the bread and butter of most Los Angeles architects. For every ambitious cultural speculation, there are countless kitchens, dens and pool decks to keep architectural practice alive. The Freund-Koopman residence pushes the logic of the house extension so that it consists of several semi-independent extensions in liaison with one another. The central house and its gardens have been retained to be joined by calm but articulate new pavilions. The total is marked by the lucid elementalisation of its parts.

The Freund-Koopmans live above the ocean in Pacific Palisades. Their home is situated off a quiet cul-de-sac and evolves about an existing two-storey core of timber construction and overhanging eaves. It is a modest manifestation of the American Dream with cars in front and tall trees behind. The first indication of design intervention is gleaned from the elegant planting of hometail, then a long shallow canopy over the threshold with glimpses of a surprising luminosity within the original volume. Entry is down into a ground floor gutted of superfluous walls and doors and services. Psychologically, you are suddenly removed from the shared driveway and within a generously glazed platform looking out onto mature vegetation.

What had appeared as a traditional static house is now open-plan and prismatic, the first pavilion in a series. To the left, you see through the older envelope into an ambient interstitial zone that cranks gently back towards the entrance. This kitchen and family area shifts to partially wrap a two-car garage, which now has an au pair's suite perched upon it. To the right, a narrow enclosed bridge plugs the existing structure hinting at a more private world beyond. This attachment then enfolds perpendicularly to spring as a new inhabited pier above the lawn. The found house, the capped garage, the springing pier and an as-yet unbuilt lap pool act in unison as planar yet somehow ambiguous spatial definers.

Space is held in a tight sandwich between floor and ceiling, in contrast with effusive nature. The central living space is exposed except for a lavatory and some small zones of storage (the structure above is retained as guest quarters). One slips through peripheral orthogonal gaps from one pavilion to the next. This linear system is then anchored by vertical thrusts up into the au pair's room above the garage and down into the family bedroom block within the pier. It is in part these tangential or satellite connections that give Freund-Koopman its appealing ambiguity.

The private pavilion is bipartite. Above, one traverses a glazed bridge into a kind of no-nonsense conservatory, a library with books against the back wall and double doors leading out on to a long, concrete-paved deck. Below, there are children's bedrooms tucked behind with the parents' suite in the prow. The nautical metaphor is apt. The upper terrace is without parapets; its painted steel handrails lean outwards as on a yacht. Below, the bedroom pier cantilevers off the sloping lot and is then tethered out to it by delicate ship's stairs. From the terrace above, a central panel of inlaid glass block emits dappled light inwards from the high trees overhead. This most intimate of the cluster of pavilions is the most cabin-like.

O'Herlihy brings a neat painterliness to the work, an undogmatic, intuitive sense of composition which is very much to do with siting, textures and the quality of light. Light is of course a primary texture, and in the Freund-Koopman house light flows in specifically from the south-facing gardens. It bounces off the oak floors and changes in intensity according to wall condition. Typically, corners are eroded to make notched windows, viewing holes with external eyebrow-hoods, such as the splendid connection from the kitchen back towards the entrance.

As the project progressed, O'Herlihy was able to exploit the characteristics of U-Glass, a German-made proprietary channel system. Interspersed with clear glass, vertically-striated flanks of this translucent material give the interior its appealing quality of being simultaneously exposed and screened. From outside, the glazed walls -- of the library, for instance -- extend beyond the ceiling structure to end flush with the roof plane. O'Herlihy has played a game of hide and seek with their family of extensions so that although the inhabitants feel protected and enclosed, the pavilions, as objects, begin to dematerialise. As a detail of plastic ambiguity, the parents' private bathroom is chopped tightly about an old pine tree. The clients can wash next to live external bark. Freund-Koopman takes deliberate pleasure in such dialectics.