Architects test the boundaries of L.A. residential design—beneath the Hollywood sign

Designing a modern-day home that meets the evolving demands of modern-day Angelenos is enough of a challenge. But how would you design a home near a world-famous landmark like the Hollywood sign? In the HOLLYWOOD design ideas competition co-launched by arch out loud and The Last House on Mulholland (LHOM) project, entrants worldwide were tasked to do just that.

As part of the LHOM project, the competition challenged entrants to test the limits of modern-day (and potentially futuristic) residential design specific to Los Angeles, let alone at an iconic site. Proposals had to express the iconic location and integration into its local context, while incorporating responsible, environmentally sustainable design elements.

The esteemed competition jury — which included LA-based designers like Thom Mayne, Tom Kundig, Jimenez Lai, Jenny Wu, Heather Roberge, Ron Radziner, and Benjamin Ball, not to mention Archinect and Bustler founder Paul Petrunia, and more — chose three prize winners and six honorable mentions. The competition also concluded with an Owner's Choice and four Directors' Choices.

The competition demonstrated a “continual transformation in response to the dynamism of Los Angeles is reminiscent of the transformative power of the dialogue between landscape and building”, said one Hollywood juror. “The best of the submissions confront these issues head-on by imagining new ways for architecture to both broadcast toward and shield us from the community around us,” commented juror Jason Long.

Have a look at the winning submissions below.

1ST PLACE: “Ambivalent House” by HIRSUTA - Jason Payne, Michael Zimmerman, Joseph Giampietro, Ryosuke Imaeda | Los Angeles, CA, US

Project excerpt: “spheroid - a figure resembling a sphere; an object of approximately spherical shape; ellipsoid of revolution; an object that is somewhat round but not perfectly round. 

Stranger things have happened on Mulholland Drive. Like the Chemosphere before it, this house pushes hard on the envelope of experimental residential design. A spheroid floating low to the ground on a single column, the form is the anexact offspring of more geometrically perfect round houses already achieved. It rotates, too, like Foster’s Roundhouse, but much more slowly, perhaps over the course of a year or more. In this way, the house’s many faces continually recombine visually to produce new profiles and elevations, an ever-changing, ambivalent object. The iconicity that is inevitable of an experimental house on this site is challenged, then, by its resistance to ever being viewed or read the same way twice.”

2ND PLACE: “Hollywood Hill” by FGO/Arquitectura - Luis Fernando Garcia, Ojeda Merida | Yucatan, Mexico

Project description: “The Project arises as a respond of re-generate the site in a natural way. Mimicking the surrounding orography with a geometrical slab which reduce the visual impact and ecological foot print, containing multiple green roofs, which act as a natural cooling system and water collectors to be re used. At the center of the project an organic vain is opened to illuminate and ventilate the house in a nature way, at the same time it produce an spectacular view of the landmark Hollywood sign. Playing with geometry to open windows through the slope.”

3RD PLACE: “The Last House” by YBDD, NHD - Yohannes Baynes, Noriaki Hanaoka | Los Angeles, CA & Tokyo, Japan

Project description: “The Last House is an experimental house for the near future. The Last House uses a combination of traditional technique and emerging technology to form a double skin roof. The Last House favors the use of passive technology systems that work in harmony with the site. The structure is nestled into the landscape to reduce exposure to heat and maximize cool air flow. The natural slope is embraced and used to define space in a house with no walls. The last house seeks a minimal impact upon its environment, yet a noticeable silver of light below the Hollywood sign.”

OWNER'S CHOICE: Eclipse by A2.0 Studio di Architettura - Luca Pozzi, Daniele Marchetti, Gabriele Filipp,i Franco Santucci | Rome, Italy

Project description: “Integration, Innovation, Iconicity. The site is strongly characterized by the wild pattern of the surrounding nature. From here the view is open to the wide landscape, from the hills to the LA urban sprawl. The sheet music is complex, made up of overlapping signs, located on a fraught ground, characterized by icons of the global collective imaginary. The project is based on simplification, on reduction, on pure forms, on the enhancement of well-being and sustainability. The circle is the representation of these concepts, in analogy with the iconic Hollywood sign and its own shadow projected on the hills.”

Don't forget to check out the Director's Choice entries + honorable mentions in the gallery below!

You can see all the winning proposals in full here.

All images courtesy of arch out loud.