Stairing at perfection

Consider all the architectural solutions for modern living and the split-level house hardly seems a candidate not to the average person who summons the image of some postwar dwelling that appears half-sunken in quicksand, its basement windows poking above ground, the front door opening to dual sets of stairs and the puzzle: Do I go up or do I go down?

There is no such confusion in the home of Jesse Bornstein in Santa Monica, California.

The architect's “split-plane'' design calls for half-flights of stairs to three separate levels: the main living and dining areas, the children's bedrooms and family room, and the master suite and sitting room.

The open stairwell serves as the house's spine, keeping the interiors free flowing yet divided into distinct rooms.

The result? More living space, light-filled rooms that feel connected to the outdoors and are yet private, and a modern look that is neither cold nor industrial.

“It obscures the conventional notion of floor plates stacked one on another,'' Bornstein says.

Let's take a look at some common design dilemmas and how this one house addresses them all.

A door-less layout that still offers privacy

Walk into modern houses and you'll come upon the open-floor plan taken to extreme: a vast, wall-less space that feels more like a convention hall than a home.

Host a simple dinner party and you find there's no hiding clutter when living, dining and sleeping areas flow together in a door-less layout.

Bornstein's split-plane design solves those dilemmas.

Centre stringer stairs — steps with a single support beam underneath and no riser — guide visitors into the home's entry and up through its core.

Using the same style of stairs, from the sidewalk to the top floor, makes moving through the entire property an orderly and logical process, Bornstein says.

The ground floor consists of two children's bedrooms and a family room, all set in the back half of the property.

Climb half a flight of stairs to the front half of the house and you find the kitchen, dining area and living room.

Climb another half-flight to a quiet sitting room, a small meditation area and the master suite.

The result is a layout where stairs play the psychological role of walls, separating spaces, yet allowing natural light and air to flow and people to move freely.

Standing in the kitchen, Bornstein can watch the children as they play in the family room downstairs and feel as though he's in a different domain.

When Bornstein and his wife, Shaun, want more division, pocket doors slide out to partition virtually every room in the house.

Above the bathroom between the two bedrooms, he created a play area for his daughters. They can reach the area with ladders in either bedroom.

Utilising space to the optimum

Walk through Bornstein's house for the first time and the biggest surprise is just how much room unfolds before your eyes.

Given the structure's modest look from the street, you don't expect 4,655 sq ft of living space on the 8,000-square foot lot, an illusion helped by shed roofs that follow the grade of the land, helping the house to appear naturally scaled to the site.

The multiple levels play a big role in lending a feeling of spaciousness but smaller gestures contribute as well.

The sitting room on the top floor could have been enclosed in drywall or left totally open.

Instead, Bornstein chose a happy medium: A large pass-through lets natural light and fresh air into the space.

Stand up and you can see the children having breakfast at the counter below; sit down and you're ensconced in a quiet, cosy reading nook.

There are so many built-in cabinets and shelves placed at every level that you'll actually find that California rarity: unused storage.

“It's a luxury to have this space,'' says Shaun, a former aerospace engineer. “I feel like I can breathe.''

Space was a factor for Resa and Tom Nikol also, who commissioned Bornstein to double the size of their 1950s Mar Vista home in Los Angeles, the US.

The result: a distinctively modern yet livable space.
“The outside is subtle but beautiful,'' says Tom, creative director for the print advertising group at Sony Pictures Television.

For a warm and cosy ambience

For purists, modern homes may seem overly cold — even corporate — but not the Bornstein house.

“During home tours, that's the one thing people comment on most,'' Shaun says. “They say: ‘For a modern home, it's very warm.'''

The first factor at play is the palette of materials. Machiche, a red-tinged South African wood, runs up the stair treads, through the main living space and across the second-floor sun deck.

All the case work was constructed of amber-hued Plyboo or bamboo plywood. The consistent approach, Bornstein adds, helps the space to appear like a unified design.

All walls are white but with a subtle sheen and texture. Light and shadow change hour to hour.

“This is the poor man's Venetian plaster,'' Bornstein says, running his fingers over the Diamond finish that has been trowelled on to blue board. The trowel marks give the material “a craft quality'', he says.

Linearity — the way the stairs, roof lines, even floorboards run in the same direction — lends a sense of synchronisation.

The home office is a paradox: How can it be made a convenient place to work yet keep it as separate as possible?
For Bornstein, the answer is a separate entrance. The office sits on the ground floor overlooking the street, separated from the main living areas by the garage and reached through its own exterior door.

“There's a greater degree of separation,'' says Bornstein, who must walk out of the house for the 20-step commute to the office. “You feel like you're going to work.''

Containment

Glass walls and titanic sliding doors are tempting but some homeowners discover all too late that a wide view isn't necessarily a good view.

When the daily panorama is a power line-filled sky, the neighbour brushing his teeth or the stares of passing motorists, all that glass quickly becomes a curse.

The trick is controlling the view by connecting to the landscape without feeling overly exposed to the outside world. In the Bornstein house, every room connects to nature — from the glassed-in family room looking out to a ring of timber bamboo, to the master bathroom, where tops of those towering Bambusa oldhamii sway in the windows.

“You're not looking at anything except the green out there,'' Bornstein says from the bathroom. “During certain times of the year, you get the morning light coming in — that sunrise — and it sets the whole thing aglow.''

In the main living area, window glass is flush with the ceiling and the roof outside runs flat.

“There's this horizontal plane effect, which extends the eye into the landscape,'' Bornstein says. “Your eye is drawn out further because there's no header.''

In contrast, the architect gently sloped the ceiling down to another side of the room, so the whole space feels intimate.

Bornstein uses the terms “containment'' and “inversion'' to describe the design but a layman will simply feel the effect — the expansiveness of the view opening in the distance and the feeling of being sheltered from the noise of the outside world.

PLAN

Purposeful distraction

While some architects equate decoration with visual distraction, Shaun says their abundant framed photos and other personal effects are essential elements of their new home, bringing more meaning to the design.

“Those paintings and photographs were done by family members,'' she says, pointing out a portrait by Jesse's father, an artist trained in France who started designing buildings as a means of supporting his family.

“I feel when you surround yourself with your loved ones — that's energy.''