A Teatro and Balcony Studio tuck Museum Tower House into steep site in Los Angeles
California designers A Teatro and Balcony Studio have completed a slender, vertical house in Los Angeles with facades made of striated plaster and interior rooms that "unfold like galleries in a museum".
The house is located in Mt Washington, a historic, hillside neighbourhood in Los Angeles. It serves as a single-family residence with a two-car garage and also includes an accessory dwelling unit (ADU).
The house was built on a small, steep lot that came with a size restriction – the home had to be under 1,407 square feet (131 square metres).
LA-based architecture studio A Teatro, led by David Gonzalez Rojas, knew it had to "approach the challenge creatively".
The team conceived a narrow, four-storey home that is slotted into the compact site. It was designed to embody a connection to the earth and to relate to the closed Southwest Museum of the American Indian, which is located nearby.
To enhance the feeling of space, the team incorporated open-air courtyards and exterior circulation. To access the top level, one must climb stairs that wrap the front corner of the house.
Facades are sheathed in striated plaster, and window boxes appear as square-shaped lanterns. The very top of the house has a living roof with desert plants.
The house is meant to look rooted to the site.
"The play between volume and void generated vertical forms that appear archaic and monolithic, emphasised by the rough vertically striated plaster to create a sense that the structure is carved into the hill," the firm said.
The interior was designed by LA-based Balcony Studio, which used the Southwest Museum as a starting point, in addition to the owner's love of nature.
"The museum, known for its extensive collection of Indigenous American artifacts, set the tone for the design's intent: a place of reverence, discovery and storytelling," the studio said.
"Balcony's design approach embraced the owner's passion for nature and rare plants, transforming the home into a series of intimate spaces and open-air terraces that unfold like galleries in a museum."
Interior rooms have warm, earthy finishes paired with cooler materials like concrete. Plants are found throughout the dwelling, including pieces by floral artist Jiahao Peng.
"Placed throughout the home, the plants function almost as living sculptures, anchoring the journey between interior and exterior, public and private," the team said.
The living area was envisioned as a "shadowed garden" filled with sculptures.
Key pieces include a coffee table by Polina Miliou, featuring her signature papier-mâché technique, and custom stools that evoke an "indoor rock garden". Underfoot is a rug by Christopher Farr.
In a bedroom, one finds an L-shaped sofa, wood-clad walls and a hanging Noguchi pendant. A room on the top floor, meant to feel like a meditative cave, is fitted with a built-in sofa bed, a desk nook and a chair by Miliou.
The ADU is used as the owner's creative studio and features a suspended plant sculpture and a Balcony-designed desk made of plywood and limestone.
"The space is adorned with artworks and sketches from the owner's private collection, cultivating a mood of openness and flow," the team said.
The home's outdoor spaces include a dining courtyard with a thick wood table and an open-air living room with soft lounge furniture. An upper-level "yoga deck" overlooks the home, revealing its layers.
"Shaded by mature trees, this final space offers quietude and perspective, revealing the home's full architectural composition – its towers, terraces and layers – as one looks back from above," the studio said.
Other residential projects in Los Angeles include the Offset ADU by local studio Byben, which has curved lines and ipe-wood cladding, and a blocky concrete house with carved-out voids by PPAA that sits on a narrow site.
The photography is by Erik Stackpole Undéhn.
Project credits:
Architect: A Teatro
Architecture team: David Gonzalez Rojas, Olga Oreshkina and Jesse Madrid
Interior design: BALCONY studio
General contractor: BM Construction
Structural and civil engineer: Thang Le & Associates
Geotechnical engineer: Irvine Geotechnical
Energy consultant: Alternative Energy Systems
Producer/owner: Devin Gharakhanian
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