When industrial designer Marc Tappeiner and his wife bought a 4,700-square-foot wedge-shaped plot in a residential Santa Barbara neighborhood, they wanted to demolish the existing two-story stucco house and build a new one for themselves (and, now, two children). Tappeiner knew he needed a creative solution for the awkward site, which had several zoning restrictions; he also wanted something that was open and naturally ventilated, craftsy yet contemporary, and that reflected his own minimalist design aesthetic. The couple reached out to Shubin Donaldson, a local firm known for its sleek Southern California houses and commercial interiors.
In founding partner and project lead Robin Donaldson, Tappeiner says he found “an architect who could do a house as he would his own”; in Tappeiner, Donaldson found an engaged client with whom he could have sophisticated discussions. “In a sense, we made design rules that we both agreed to,” Donaldson says.
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From early on, they decided to design the three-level, 3,000-square-foot house without drywall, and to limit the material palette to steel, concrete, glass, and wood. “The philosophy here was about taking things away until arriving at the essence,” says Tappeiner. Inside, these four elements are expressed in various ways: in some areas, the concrete structure is left exposed as walls and flooring, while in others, the braced steel frame is made visible through glazed partitions. Douglas fir–paneled ceilings are juxtaposed with shiny steel finishes. The steel is seen most prominently in a central staircase topped by a rectangular skylight.
Setback constraints and height limitations, city requirements for open space, plus the need to design around the sun’s path, drove the building’s stacked, cantilevering form, each level housed within its own separate volume. The exterior is clad with slats of Brazilian ipe, which wrap horizontally around the upper floor’s fully glazed sliding walls to screen it from the sun, and run vertically along the other volumes, functioning as a rainscreen. The slats also shield an outdoor patio on the main level.
After the form was articulated, the program was “plugged in,” according to Donaldson. “It was the inverse of our typical residential design process,” he says. Since Tappeiner wanted to take full advantage of the upper level’s expansive ocean views and breezes, the design team placed the kitchen, dining, and main living area in this space, and two bedrooms and a large sitting room on the floor below; a basement level, which houses a garage and family room, was excavated.
“I think that what made the house special was the synergy between Robin and myself,” says Tappeiner. “We’re both from California; we’re both similarly minded.” Donaldson agrees: “The mutual respect for each other’s design abilities really helped propel the process.”