The new interstitial spaces between the old exterior walls and the new industrial outer walls became the new public zones of the home.
The ground floor contains the living room (housed within the original bungalow), the kitchen and dining area (in the new shell), two bedrooms, and a bathroom. The First Floor: The "Tree House"
The second floor houses the private quarters, including the bedrooms and bathrooms. While it follows the footprint of the original Dutch Colonial house more closely than the ground floor, it is no less radical.
The main entry leads down to a stark, gray asphalt floor on grade, bridging the old interior and the new exterior. gehry residence floor plan
It teaches us that a home does not need to be quiet. It can be loud. It does not need to be insulated from the street. It can embrace the noise. And a floor plan does not need to be a circle. It can be a collision.
Former exterior windows of the old house suddenly looked inward into the new kitchen and dining spaces, completely reversing the concepts of inside and outside. Ground Floor Plan: Disruption and Fluidity
Instead of tearing down the existing two-story suburban home, Gehry left the original structure largely intact. He then built a new, avant-garde outer shell around three sides of it. The new interstitial spaces between the old exterior
The original ground floor rooms of the 1920s house were stripped down to their essential framing. The old living room and dining room were opened up to create a more fluid, continuous layout.
Gehry Residence in Santa Monica, California, is a landmark of Deconstructivism
The floor plan of the Gehry Residence proves that Deconstructivism was never just about wild, chaotic exteriors; it was fundamentally about rewriting the rules of domestic space. By breaking open the traditional suburban floor plan, Frank Gehry turned a simple family home into a living laboratory of light, shadow, and architectural theory. It remains a vital blueprint studied by architects worldwide to understand how tension, history, and materials can collide to create something entirely new. While it follows the footprint of the original
Before we look at the blueprint, we must understand the constraint. In 1977, Frank Gehry purchased an existing pink bungalow. He was not allowed to demolish it due to zoning laws and budget restrictions. His solution? He stripped away the interior finishes, exposed the studs and joists, and then wrapped the old house in new, chaotic forms.
Understanding the Gehry Residence floor plan requires looking beyond traditional boundaries to see how a "house within a house" was designed to challenge the status quo. 1. The Concept: Wrapping and Collision
If you are studying the blueprint, pay attention to the windows. They are not placed for symmetry. They are placed to frame specific views of the neighbors' houses—views that Gehry then distorted by angling the framing studs. The floor plan dictates exactly where your eye will stop.
One night, after a quarrel over money, Frank retreated to his studio—a glass shed attached by a narrow, tilting bridge. Miriam went to the living room and sat on the , a ledge that followed an angled wall. From there, she could see Frank through the glass, scribbling furiously. She knocked on the window frame—three soft taps. He looked up. Instead of shouting across the rectangle of a normal room, she slid open the asymmetric sliding door and tossed a crumpled note toward him. It landed on his drafting table.