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Pro Portfolio: Anthony Coscia’s Skywave House in Venice

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Every Monday, we post a recently built, remodeled or redecorated home with commentary from the designer. This week, we have the architectural departure called Skywave House.

Architect: Anthony Coscia of Coscia Day Architecture & Design, Marina del Rey, (310) 399-1613; SkywaveHouse.com

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Location: Venice

Goal: to unite the open plan of a multilevel artist’s loftwith the Southern California dream of indoor-outdoor living while exploring complex geometric form.

Architect’s description: The sculptural shape of Skywave House folds and unfolds to make unusual spaces, including an indoor<-outdoor living room that seems to hover in the air. This is a four-bedroom, four-bathroom home with a small guest house in back.The house is 2,262 square feet but feels larger because of the three-story glass entry and the tall ceilings. Long views inside the house are made possible by interior glass walls and railings. Most interior partitions are sliding doors that offer either privacy or expansive views. The landscape and sky are visible through multiple skylights and large exterior glass walls, many of which slide open. The space is intended to provide quiet contemplation during the day and to work equally well as a social space in the evening.

Skywave House’s lower exterior is a smooth, hand-rubbed black stucco. Inside, dark indoor-outdoor Italian porcelain tile covers the floor and the lower half of the walls. White metal panels clad upper exterior walls and the roof; they prevent heat buildup. The kitchen and exterior dining deckshave white concrete floors that also reduce heat gain. The motorized west-facing windows and scoop skylights, which collect the cool ocean breezes, are an active green feature. The tall entry acts as a thermal chimney, drawing hot air out a motorized trapezoidal skylight. In the winter, the same vertical space allows the heat produced by radiant heating in the lower concrete floors to rise and warm the entire house.

Keep reading for more photos and details ...


The indoor-outdoor living room is a suspended pavilion adjacent to the three-story entry.
The wave-like roof and the floor of the bedroom suites curl over 12-foot-high glass walls with full-height sliding doors. Orange Eames chairs sit on the patio.


The rear of the house is all glass. On the lower level lies a Boffi stainless-steel kitchen island with Gaggenau appliances, Sub-Zero refrigerator and built-in oak wine/spice wall. To the right is a bathroomwith a walk-in shower accessible from the outside, convenient for rinsing off beach sand.Above is a bedroom, dressing room and spa bathroom with Italian porcelain floor and a freestanding Agape tub.


A koi pond cut into the coffee-colored concrete slab sits below the second-floor outdoor living room.

The 29-foot-tall entry opens up to multiple levels. A glass bridge doesn’t obstruct views to walls of greenery beyond.

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The ground level is an entry salon with the angled forms of the stairs and pylon-shapedservice cabinet, which contains the radiant-heated floor controls along with the heat and air ducts.


The living room actually consists for two spaces separated by a sliding glass wall. A tall bamboo grove controls the view. The sofa, designed by Patricia Urquiola and made by Moroso, came from In-Ex on Wilshire Boulevard. The chairs outside are a Karim Rashid design.


The interior is a continuous open space with uninterrupted views through the house from the living room to the dining and kitchen area below and to the glassed-in master bedroom above.


The master suite has an ebony-stained oak closet cube. All interior walls that are not glass are translucent resin or solid panels topped with glass to allow the ceiling to flow visually from room to room. A covered outdoor balcony provides a spot to talk on the phone or read.

The master bedroom is at the center of the house and surroundedby full-height glass walls. Clerestory windows provide treetop views.


The office at the front of the home has full-height sliding glass walls and looks out toward an orange1970s capsule fireplace set by bamboo and the koi pond. The Loop desk is a Cappellini design from Diva on Beverly Boulevard, and the painting is ‘Pink Moon’ by Kevin Parr.

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RELATED:

Architect Barbara Bestor’s ‘floating bungalow’

Three distinct looks at Gallery Lofts in Marina del Rey

Two homes on one lot: A separate but equal approach in Silver Lake

-- Emily Young

Pro Portfolio appears here every Monday. Submit projects to home@latimes.com.

Follow future installments by bookmarking L.A. at Home or joining our Facebook page dedicated to California home design.

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