Bloom House by Gregg Lynn

Greg Lynn Architects has designed his first commissioned residential project ‘The 4,200-square-foot Bloom House’ that was build for a film and television director. Located on a pedestrian lane in Southern California, the bloom house and its proud silhouette prove that Lynn is able to make quiet, livable architecture when the desire arises. Its distorted interior surfaces, which bulge out at unexpected points, have a fine-crafted feel that’s pleasing to the eye.

‘‘It’s really my first bespoke house,’’ Lynn said. ‘‘It has a level of refinement in its forms and surfaces that I’ve never tried to achieve before. I wanted the curvilinear elements to look perfect. So I was more focused on the interiors. If I connected it with anything I’ve done before, it would be my large-scale gallery installations.’’

This first physical realization of Lynn work is especially impressive when judged by interior spaces, which employ deliberately distorted surfaces. These undulating surfaces appear everywhere, from the walls, to the furniture, to the lighting fixtures. The interior is stark and white, with bright pops of color in the form of artwork and furniture upholstery. Lynn managed to create an intriguing piece of architecture that shields its true nature from the casual passerby. The only hint is part of a curved, yellow fiberglass light fixture that illuminates the porch. The fixture continues inside and, in following the nature of the house, expands into an intricate sculpture.
At first glance, the house looks blandly conventional. Its boxy, two-story form faces a narrow front lawn framed by thick clusters of bamboo. (‘‘I thought of it as a conventional row house,’’ Lynn admitted. ‘‘I guess I got caught up a bit in the Southern California Modernist tradition of the house without walls.’’) Nondescript stucco apartment blocks and beach houses flank it on both sides. In back, a narrow alleyway, stocked with beat-up pickup trucks and BMWs, leads to the garage. Standing on the alley’s potholed asphalt, you can feel a strong breeze from the beach less than a block away.

The first hint of something odd is the sight of a few scattered windows, their outlines resembling puckered lips that pierce the side of the house. A narrow joint runs down it, linking the windows and creating the uneasy impression that the house is pulling apart at the seams. Back in front, the tail of a yellowish fiberglass lantern pokes through the sliding glass doors, its end curling up to illuminate the front deck.

Inside, the lantern unfurls along the ceiling, its undulating form snaking its way across the living room before tapering off above the dining room table. The lantern made of a series of molded fiberglass panels, it has a wonderfully sinister quality, like a carcass that had been mounted on the ceiling and rigged with light bulbs. ‘‘The idea comes from high-performance-boat construction,’’ said Lynn, who is an avid sailor. ‘‘This was our first chance to test it as a building material. What I like about it is that the material is strong and flexible, so that one system can perform all kinds of functions. Eventually you could imagine doing a house’s structure, skin and windows all out of one piece.’’