Inside a Futuristic Home with Detachable Rooms

[mellow music]

[Ed] All my work responds

to some level to its surrounding,

whether the surrounding is nature

in the sense of trees, gardens,

the ocean or the desert.

It doesn't make any difference what it is.

I'm responding to it.

So all this enters into an equation

and how it comes out is what we call creativity.

You must have a knowledge in architecture,

you must have a knowledge of structures,

you must have a knowledge of the human being.

You must be able to get emotional.

If you aren't emotional,

don't be an architect.

Big waste of time.

[mellow music]

I am Ed Niles,

my daughter and myself built the house

with the owners.

The home, it took about three years to design

and two years to build.

And that was completed right about '92.

When the clients came to me

and I began to know them more as individualists,

they had real concerns about certain things.

They loved nature and we looked around to find a site.

To find a site that he could feel free.

[mellow music]

The variety of modules,

and I use the word module here,

'cause it really has a context that makes sense.

These rooms today can be unhooked

and rearranged along the spine.

In terms of the idea behind this,

these are the upper sections

where you're in the room now,

this is the gallery down the middle

and these are the separate spaces

that have the separate air conditioning,

heating, water, everything.

So this, when something happens here,

this whole panel hinges down

and you have access to that.

The structure we're in right now is this one here.

That would be the module that was originally his office

and this was the bathroom module that we moved.

Every module in itself is like a package that's moved

and then plugged in to what's going down the middle.

[mellow music]

The bridge or the connector

to the other building

that was actually designed in five different ways.

It was plugged in over here at one time.

There is a level of technology that's apparent

and usually there's a tremendous amount

of visual transparency

that if I got a great mountain over there

and I'm standing here and over there,

I can see through and there's that mountain.

There's this idea that seeing through

or being transparent is another way to place it

to me is a very important piece of what it is.

Philosophically, my approach is always to be reflective

of where I am at that moment in time.

This is the Dimitri Vergun space.

He was my structural engineer

that worked with us from the very beginning.

It's primary use is entertaining,

hearing music,

being the somewhat center of the universe here.

It doesn't share itself with anything else.

In fact, the kitchen is left to a very minor piece of it.

But the idea is you could flow in and out,

the ceiling height is 36 feet from where I'm standing

and the translucent roof system is on the orientation

of the moon and the orientation of the sun.

So what happens is the sun travels across the ark

and this room is continuously lit during the day.

The space we're in is a suggestion of a kitchen

and the word suggestion only implies that

we weren't working with a client with a great necessity

or essence to be cooking all the time.

So the idea was to put in a symbolic kitchen essentially

with the normal sinks, normal refrigerators and such.

But the original concept behind it was to simply

have a space that one could have food delivered to.

That was the lifestyle they had.

They traveled quite a bit.

They had many parties here,

but a lot of it was set up outside.

This became mainly the place for making drinks.

Well, where we are or what is left over of the main space.

This is the sitting area that normally

would face into any entertainment,

whether it be TV or other devices.

I think the main thing is about is

you stand here and speak,

you can see there's no echo at all.

That was set up purposely for that

without putting acoustic tiles everywhere

to try to control it.

The gray greens and things of that nature,

to not replicate nature,

but to not draw attention to anymore than there is.

You don't need color to remind you of what's going on.

There's just so many pieces

and parts that are coming at you in its original form.

[mellow music]

We're in a bridge that connects the main living space

to all of the secondary bedrooms

of the suspended upper structure.

Each side of you,

as you recognize,

you'll never lose your position in time or space.

You're constantly aware of the forms that are around you.

Especially at nighttime.

Going up and down the stair is very exciting

'cause you're getting the glow of all the light

from the upper structure going through the fiberglass system

and you're getting the light going the other way,

of course coming out of the main structure.

So you're always in context

with where you are in in space.

You're always seeing the ocean

or you're always seeing across the court below and beyond.

I've used bridges many times

depending on the nature of the project.

They're very exciting.

The difficulty in them,

like any other piece of architecture,

you've got to be mathematically correct

because normally they're brought in by crane

and they have to fit perfectly.

[ambient music]

We are in the...

Call it the...

It's not a hallway really.

The hallway would be enclosed.

This has always been open,

except for some doors that connected on his office.

It's sort of the meeting place for everybody that's up here.

So its main purpose is the connectivity,

but without getting into a typical tailored hallway.

Being up like,

this allowed you to really differentiate

sleeping privacy from what happens on the ground plane.

The ground plane being a place

where there's a lot of activity,

lot of movement, people coming and going.

This was a secluded area upstairs.

Again, the sunlight is allowed to do the job,

to light the space softly,

to give it the sense that there is something outside.

At nighttime, the moon,

all the other things I've said before,

play into this space and give it life.

This is the primary sleeping zone.

It is extremely important to the house

because once you've made the choice

to leave the main living space below,

this has to operate as a world in itself.

I have to add,

that's probably one of the most exciting spaces

because you are immersed in the trees and the trees change.

So during the wintertime you get a lot more light in here.

Well, the natural light here is obviously critical

because it's part of seeing nature outside,

but also you're in the air like being in an airplane

and so the ground plane disappears

and so there's a sense of flight,

sense of freedom in the air

'cause you don't see the ground at night.

So what you have is that sensation of being

really isolated in time and space.

The balcony was critical because just being outside,

being on a chair or being on a chaise lounge

or just being on the spa

was a completely independent world again.

But the view is sensational,

especially at nighttime,

when you're seeing the crescent of Santa Monica

and all the way around.

It carries with it a lot of things

that I try to replicate in many homes.

This gives a chance for people

to express themselves emotionally,

and not feel there's gonna be somebody else challenging it.

[ambient music]

The space's bathing, dressing area is part of it.

Dressing is across the hall,

but this space was designed

so that both of them could utilize an island sink

but I also gave them a lot of surface area and access.

And so it's a piece of furniture.

It really...

It's not just a counter,

it's a piece of furniture that we designed

that floats in this space.

[ambient music]

This is the south facing court

towards the ocean, towards the islands.

This is the place

where a variety of furniture types have been tested

and the sliding glass door sections are California bred.

Most of these doors are normally so small

it's not worth the time that you would open them up.

So these were big and they were also done

on rollers or stainless steel

so that we didn't have a problem with corrosion.

[ambient music]

The pool was essential primarily

because the owners wanted one.

The other use was the fact that,

at nighttime this pool would be lighted

and is a great reflection piece on the site.

The third item is the ability to use it

as part of a heat sink for the water source heat pumps

so that instead of using energy

and electricity to generate heat,

we use these,

extrapolate it from the water

and it's like something that ties itself

back to the main structure

in terms of what it is and how it works.

[ambient music]

Sculpture is a big part of the exterior landscape.

The idea from the beginning was that

you can pick them up and change them

after you change your mind.

That dynamic was good

because over the years,

Milt would call me up and he'd say,

I bought this new piece,

you gotta come over and see it.

And that really created the action on the space.

[ambient music]

I would say the home itself is unforgiving.

There are no options.

You're in a room or you're not in a room.

You are within nature or you're not in nature

depending on the time of day.

You walk from room to room

and you experience different views of nature,

different impacts of nature,

but you also are affected by the fact

that you're moving

through the world at a different time of the day constantly.

But being separated from nature is not the intent.

The point being is that you are separated

with nature automatically

whether you want to or not.

And that's where the architect comes in

as a translator of emotions, issues,

technology, all of that into an object.

[ambient music]