Esta es la casa futurista que el arquitecto Ed Niles construyó en 1992. Está ubicada entre los árboles de la ciudad de Malibú, y su diseño redefinió la arquitectura del sur de California. Se trata de una estructura larga con habitaciones modulares que se pueden separar y reorganizar a lo largo de la columna vertebral de la casa.
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LifestyleTranscript
00:00 [MUSIC PLAYING]
00:03 All my work responds at some level to its surrounding.
00:19 Whether the surrounding is nature,
00:21 in the sense of trees, gardens, the ocean, or the desert,
00:25 it doesn't make any difference what it is.
00:28 I'm responding to it.
00:30 So all this enters into an equation.
00:32 And how it comes out is what we call creativity.
00:37 You must have a knowledge of architecture.
00:38 You must have a knowledge of structures.
00:41 You must have a knowledge of the human being.
00:44 You must be able to get emotional.
00:46 If you aren't emotional, don't be an architect.
00:49 Big waste of time.
00:50 I am Ed Niles.
00:56 My daughter and myself built the house with the owners.
01:01 The home took about three years to design
01:05 and two years to build.
01:07 And that was completed right about '92.
01:11 The client came to me, and I began to know them
01:13 more as individualists.
01:15 They had real concerns about certain things.
01:18 They loved nature.
01:19 And we looked around to find a site, a fine site
01:22 that he could feel free.
01:24 [MUSIC PLAYING]
01:28 The variety of modules--
01:33 I use the word module here because it really
01:35 has a context that makes sense.
01:37 These rooms today can be unhooked and rearranged
01:42 along the spine.
01:44 In terms of the idea behind this,
01:46 these are the upper sections where you're in the room now.
01:49 This is the gallery down the middle.
01:52 And these are the separate spaces
01:54 that have a separate air conditioning, heating, water,
01:57 everything.
01:58 So when something happens here, this whole panel hinges down,
02:03 and you have access to that.
02:05 The structure right now is this one here.
02:09 That would be the module that was originally his office.
02:12 And this was the bathroom module that we moved.
02:15 Every module in itself is like a package that's moved and then
02:20 plugged in to what's going down the middle.
02:23 The bridge or the connector to the other building,
02:30 that was actually designed in five different ways.
02:33 It's plugged in over here at one time.
02:35 There is a level of technology that's apparent.
02:39 And usually, there's a tremendous amount
02:42 of visual transparency.
02:44 That if I got a great mountain over there,
02:46 and I'm standing here, and over there, I can see through,
02:48 and there's that mountain.
02:49 There's this idea that seeing through and/or being
02:54 transparent is another way to place it, to me,
02:56 is a very important piece of what it is.
03:00 Philosophically, my approach is always
03:03 to be reflective of where I am at that moment in time.
03:06 This is the Dimitri Vergoon space.
03:16 He was my structural engineer that
03:19 worked with this from the very beginning.
03:20 His primary use is entertaining, hearing music,
03:26 being the somewhat center of the universe here.
03:29 It doesn't share itself with anything else.
03:31 In fact, the kitchen is left to a very minor piece of it.
03:36 But the idea is you could flow in and out.
03:38 The ceiling height is 36 feet from where I'm standing.
03:42 And a translucent roof system is on the orientation of the moon
03:48 and the orientation of the sun.
03:51 So what happens is the sun travels across the arc,
03:54 and this room is continuously lit during the day.
03:59 The space we're in is a suggestion of a kitchen.
04:03 And the word suggestion only implies
04:05 that we weren't working with a client with a great necessity
04:10 or essence to be cooking all the time.
04:12 So the idea was to put in a symbolic kitchen,
04:15 essentially, with the normal sinks, normal refrigerators,
04:19 and such.
04:20 But the original concept behind it
04:22 was to simply have a space that one
04:25 could have food delivered to.
04:27 That was the lifestyle they had.
04:29 They traveled quite a bit.
04:30 They had many parties here, but a lot of it was set up outside.
04:34 This became mainly the place for making drinks.
04:38 Where we are, what is left over of the main space,
04:41 this is the sitting area that normally
04:44 would face into any entertainment,
04:47 whether it be TV or other devices.
04:50 I think the main thing it's about
04:51 is you stand here and speak.
04:52 You can see there's no echo at all.
04:54 That was set up purposely for that,
04:56 without putting acoustic tiles everywhere
04:58 to try to control it.
05:00 The gray, greens, and things of that nature
05:03 do not replicate nature, but do not draw attention
05:06 to any more than there is.
05:08 You don't need color to remind you of what's going on.
05:11 There's just so many pieces and parts
05:13 that are coming at you in its original form.
05:15 We're on a bridge that connects the main living
05:23 space to all of the secondary bedrooms of the suspended upper
05:28 structure.
05:30 Each side of you, as you recognize,
05:32 you never lose your position in time or space.
05:35 You're constantly aware of the forms that are around you,
05:38 especially at nighttime.
05:40 Going up and down the stairs, very exciting,
05:43 because you're getting the glow of all the light
05:45 from the upper structure going through the fiberglass system.
05:49 And you're getting the light going the other way,
05:51 of course, coming out of the main structure.
05:54 So you're always in context with where you are in space.
05:59 You're always seeing the ocean, or you're always
06:01 seeing across the court, below, and beyond.
06:05 I've used bridges many times, depending
06:07 on the nature of the project.
06:08 They're very exciting.
06:10 The difficulty is that, like any other piece of architecture,
06:13 you've got to be mathematically correct,
06:16 because normally they're brought in by crane
06:17 and they have to fit perfectly.
06:19 We are in the--
06:27 call it the-- it's not a hallway, really.
06:30 The hallway would be enclosed.
06:31 This has always been open, except for some doors
06:34 that connected on his office.
06:36 It's sort of a meeting place for everybody that's up here.
06:39 So its main purpose is the connectivity,
06:42 but without getting into a typical tailored hallway.
06:46 Being up like this allowed you to really differentiate
06:50 sleeping privacy from what happens on the ground plane.
06:54 The ground plane being a place where there's a lot of activity,
06:57 a lot of movement, people coming and going.
06:59 This was a secluded area upstairs.
07:02 Again, the sunlight is allowed to do the job,
07:06 to light the space softly, to give it the sense that there
07:09 is something outside.
07:11 At nighttime, the moon, all the other things I've said before,
07:14 play into this space and give it life.
07:17 This is the primary sleeping zone.
07:26 It is extremely important to the house,
07:28 because once you've made the choice to leave the main living
07:31 space below, this has to operate as a world in itself.
07:36 I have to add, that's probably one of the most exciting spaces,
07:38 because you are immersed in the trees, and the trees change.
07:43 So during the wintertime, you get a lot more light in here.
07:45 Well, the natural light here is obviously critical,
07:48 because it's part of seeing nature outside.
07:51 But also, you're in the air, like being in an airplane.
07:53 And so the ground plane disappears,
07:56 and so there's a sense of flight,
07:58 a sense of freedom in the air, because you
08:00 don't see the ground at night.
08:02 So what you have is that sensation
08:04 of being really isolated in time and space.
08:09 The balcony was critical, because just being outside,
08:12 being on a chair, being on a chaise lounge,
08:15 or just being in the spa, was a completely independent world
08:18 again.
08:19 But the view is sensational, especially at nighttime,
08:22 when you're seeing the crescent of Santa Monica
08:25 and all the way around.
08:27 It carries with it a lot of things
08:29 that I try to replicate in many homes.
08:32 This gives a chance for people to express themselves
08:35 emotionally and not feel there's going
08:37 to be somebody else challenging it.
08:39 The space is a bathing and dressing area as part of it.
08:48 Dressing is across the hall.
08:50 But this space was designed so that both of them
08:52 could utilize an island sink.
08:55 It also gave them a lot of surface area and access.
08:57 And so it's a piece of furniture, really.
08:59 It's not just a counter.
09:00 It's a piece of furniture that we designed
09:02 that floats in this space.
09:04 [MUSIC PLAYING]
09:06 This is the south-facing court towards the ocean,
09:16 towards the islands.
09:17 This is the place where a variety of furniture types
09:20 have been tested.
09:21 And the sliding glass door sections are California-bred.
09:24 Most of these doors are normally so small,
09:26 it's not worth the time to even open them up.
09:28 So these were big.
09:29 And they were also done on rollers or stainless steel,
09:33 so they wouldn't have a problem with corrosion.
09:35 [MUSIC PLAYING]
09:38 The pool was essential primarily because the owners wanted one.
09:44 The other use was the fact that at nighttime,
09:47 this pool would be lighted and is a great reflection
09:50 piece on the site.
09:51 The third item is the ability to use it
09:54 as part of a heat sink for the water source heat pumps.
09:57 So that instead of using energy and electricity
10:00 to generate heat, we use these, extrapolate it from the water.
10:04 And it's like something that ties itself back
10:06 to the main structure in terms of what it is
10:08 and how it works.
10:09 [MUSIC PLAYING]
10:12 Sculpture is a big part of the exterior landscape.
10:20 The idea from the beginning was you can pick them up and change
10:23 them after you change your mind.
10:25 That dynamic was good because over the years,
10:27 Milt would call me up and he'd say,
10:29 I bought this new piece, you got to come over and see it.
10:31 And that really created the action on the space.
10:34 [MUSIC PLAYING]
10:57 I would say the home itself is unforgiving.
11:00 There are no options.
11:02 You're in a room or you're not in a room.
11:04 You are within nature or you're not in nature,
11:07 depending on the time of day.
11:09 You walk from room to room and you
11:12 experience different views of nature,
11:15 different impacts of nature.
11:17 But you also are affected by the fact
11:20 that you're moving through the world
11:22 at a different time of the day constantly.
11:25 But being separated from nature is not the intent.
11:29 The point being is that you are separated from nature
11:33 automatically, whether you want to or not.
11:37 And that's where the architect comes in
11:39 as a translator of emotions, issues, technology, all
11:45 of that into an object.
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12:04 [Music]