ARCHITECTURE

California Wave: Mario Romano's Wave House

Venice is one of Los Angeles, California's most famous neighborhoods and got its start as a beachside resort.
28 November, 2016
The Venice neighborhood is a creative and artistic hub and a favorite haunt of surfers and skateboarders.
It is not often that one hears an architect say that skateboards inspired his work, but Mario Romano has built a home in Venice that seems to capture the spirit of the area. His design captures the undulations of ramps and snowboard slopes in striking aluminium cladding -- including its 2.74 meter front door made entirely from skateboard decks.

The Wave House, a 530 square meter home situated near the ocean, uses 300 pieces of white painted aluminium to create a skin surrounding and spilling over the home, in what the architect says is much the same way that a tailor uses fabrics to create clothing. The aluminium was digitally rolled and unrolled, then cut by a CNC machine.
Images: Mario Romano
The aluminium panels then were attached to a support substructure, with uniform gaps between them to create lines so that the distinct waves appear to cascade across the two-story structure. Romano says that because of the geometry involved, the typical language of the built environment – the speech of walls and roofs – no longer worked. He instead speaks of feather lines, rivers and other natural forms.

"I wanted to unite the sky and the earth in a single move, an architectural element that no one has ever achieved," said Romano, who used design software usually reserved for boats, automobiles and aircraft.
The design elements aren't just aesthetic though. The aluminium "feathers" along the courtyard allow more air to circulate, keeping the house cool and dry in the California sun. That sun also is used to effect in creating the intrigue and wave-like motion of constantly changing shadows cast throughout the day, beginning at the top of the parapet and continuing more than 18 meters to the bottom of the wall.

Inside, the same fluid motion evoked by ocean waves and mountain slopes is at play, with textured surfaces in some of the rooms. Romano said he wanted to make the shifts between the house and the natural landscape as seamless as possible.
An open-air living room and theater is nestled beneath the second story, and communicates directly with the gardens, the outdoor swimming pool and jacuzzi. The interior rooms – all of them living and entertaining spaces with 4.27 meter high ceilings – are designed with sweeping views from full-sized glass walls that are retractable, so that opening them erases all barriers between these ground-level rooms and the outdoors.

Interior decorating that continues the theme includes a wall constructed of 1,000 single cubes in the dining room, and a 40-foot hallway that continues the flowing lines down its length. The second story is built with five bedrooms; there are four baths altogether, including one with a small indoor pool and white walls designed in relief to continue the motion and texture the aluminium creates on the outside.
Images: Mario Romano
For Romano, who considers himself foremost as an artist, the architecture is really about being a sculptor of homes. His vision relies on interpreting nature and following its flow, rather than an understanding of homes as boxes with what he describes as an authoritarian feel. The digital technologies make his creations possible, but so do his choice of materials.

Working with durable yet flexible aluminium, as well as the cedar block chosen for the street face and the extensive use of glass throughout the home, make it possible to deliver the vision he had for Wave House. Romano wanted to create a visually exciting house, and he did, but it is also one for people to live in and enjoy for years to come.
Banner image: Mario Romano