Mataja Guest House
This 700 square foot Guest House is the exclamation point for this unique Project which sits at the highpoint on a 42 acre parcel and overlooks a much larger Main Residence below. This structure serves as the Owner’s temporal retreat from the rigors of work and the demands of family life. The property is situated along the “County Line” dividing Ventura and Los Angeles in the Santa Monica Mountains near Malibu in Southern California. The small Guest House hovers 2,500 feet above Leo Carillo Beach below.
A 12” wide reinforced concrete wall bisects the structure and punctuates the roof. It is the physical and visual extension of this same wall that emerges from the Properties Water Well at the upper end of the property and engages the Main House below at the other end. The wall serves to divide the structure programmatically and literally into served and servant spaces with a small Kitchenette, Bathroom, Closet and Mechanical Room on one side of the wall and the Entry/Living/Sleeping area on the other.
Broad Roof Planes overhang the structure and at crucial points fold down to provide privacy and shelter from the elements. The roof folds and extensions give a dynamic sculptural quality to the structure flying into the sky at one end and firmly tied to the earth at the other.
A corrugated water tower immediately adjacent to the structure attaches itself to the western end of the concrete wall and helps to further anchor the composition. It also serves to remind the occupants of their fragile dependence on the precious contents contained within the towers walls without which the entire development could not have been realized due to County requirements for minimum water production from the on-site well.
Construction was completed in 2000.
