Minitzer Residence | Horst Noppenberger

Carefully sited to embrace a large rock outcropping on a hillside site in Laguna Beach, California, this project began from an initial conversation between owner and the architect while standing together on the site. They imagined a design, which through it’s materiality and physical lightness, would lead to a clear mediation between the structure and the site. The conversation evolved into a metaphorical narrative of two wooden shipping containers which fell onto the site from a cargo plane, one laying horizontally and the other standing vertically on the site. The horizontal box would be open ended, expansive and contain communal space. The vertical box would remain relatively closed, sheltered, intimate and contain sleeping spaces. The interstitial space between the two boxes became the entry. A linear reflecting pond and pool beginning at the entry courtyard reinforces the presence of the Pacific Ocean in the distance.