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Curved, white structures are arranged in a repeating pattern against a soft blue background. Light reflects off the smooth surfaces, creating a serene and minimalist scene.
This house is a monument to minimalism and not for everyone. Designed by San Francisco-based Jim Jennings for himself and his wife, the eight-foot-tall (8ft = 2.4384m) exterior walls form a refuge from the harsh climate of the desert landscape. It's utterly private.
Rather than creating a lush interior escape so common in Palm Springs, Jennings has gone in another direction, honoring the San Jacinto mountain vista above all. The 70 m2 house uses off-the-shelf industrial materials, including steel beams, painted concrete blocks, and sliding glass doors that track into a wall recess, opening the walls of the house almost entirely to the 280 m2 property.
The steel beams that support the roof also cleverly hide the air conditioning vents, while the guts of the house - the AC unit, pool equipment, and solar panels - lie outside of the house's enclosure. The roof sits above clerestories that give the illusion the house is floating above the exterior walls.
There is a small lap pool at one end of the western courtyard, and the living room and bedroom are separated by a kitchen and bathroom. Other than two simple white block benches, the courtyard remains starkly empty. Jennings sees it as a counterpoint to the mountains. "There is so much mass in the mountains," he says. "The empty courtyard becomes a spatial frame."
Jennings and his wife have furnished the house in a similarly stark aesthetic. White dominates, and most of the furniture was chosen for its ability to work both indoors and out. The house was designed in 2005 and completed in 2009. The house was on the market from August 2011 to March 2012, listed at $725,000.
This is part of the exterior of the Towner Art Gallery in Eastbourne, UK, designed by Rick Mather and opened in 2009. I thought the modernist design made for an interesting minalist abstract shot. I framed the shot to include a number of the shapes that have been incorporated into the concrete exterior