The first thing you notice about the artist Yi Kai and his wife Jian Zheng on the Monterey Park is the swimming pool. Like the pool pictures of David Hockney, which celebrate the sun -filled landscapes of Los Angeles, the glittering waves of the pool water on the first floor echoed, similar to the Skyline from Los Angeles in the distance.
“This house was not only treated as a construction project, but as a constantly developed work of art,” says Kai. “Over time, we have refined, changed and reinterpreted it – a process that reflects the values of both experimentation and transformation.”
The Blue Swimming Pool, a typical Californian feature, is not just a leisure room, but a central element of the new house, which was built from scratch after the house from 1956. According to the architect de Peter Yi, who designed the newly completed home for his aunt and uncle in collaboration with the architect Laura Marie Peterson, the original kidney -shaped pool of the house was intended as a delightful surprise when entering the house.
The movement of the house that curves around the pool “breaks out of the rigid house construct,” says Yi and it is a deliberate selection of the design that symbolizes the mixture of Chinese and American cultural elements.
“We wanted to make the rooms outdoors useful and delightful,” says Kai. “The balcony provides viewpoints that they would normally not get.”
Yi Kai and Jian Zheng's home from 1956 in Monterey Park before it was torn down.
(De Peter Yi)
The magical quality of the pool extends far beyond the first floor. On the upper floor, an 80 -foot long, curved teak deck, which is allowed within 50% of the rear setback, revolves around the pool, which makes the outdoor areas feel much larger than they are. The city frames partly height walls and create a number of outdoor locations that feel like rooms.
“For me, the house was really about opening certain prospects and moments to create a number of interiors,” says Peterson.
An 80 -foot sidewalk creates unforgettable moments outdoors, says Yi by “taking something everyday and making it special” by changing the light during the day.
“We frame this view,” says Yi and compares it with James Turrell's outdoor “cloud tip” (including the “sharing of the light” pavilion on the Pomona College), in which Turrell frames part of the sky with a built area.
The 70 -year -old artist of Los Angeles, Yi Kai, and his wife Jian Zheng, 65, tore off their original house from 1956 in the Monterey Park and built a modern, comfortable home for their retirement.
Kai, who is Chinese American, says that his works of art mix aspects of his inheritance, but “focuses on a single topic: understanding and thinking about human condition”.
Look closely and you will see Kais artistic touch in the whole house. For example, an spiral staircase, a connection between the deck and the garage studio on the ground floor, is a striking feature. It is shown in nine 18-foot wood strips from the original home of the couple and in red and blue with a seven-stage white base painted and a design that reflects the colors of the American flag.
The spiral staircase outdoors consists of repeated wood from the torn house of the couple.
Another unique feature in the house is a long slot that reminds of a trap door that enables Kai to move his pictures from his studio on the first floor to an attic on the second floor in which he stores them.
Yi Kai and Ms. Jian Zheng go one of his oil paintings through the ceiling of his studio to his office on the second floor of their house. Kai says he got the idea after visiting Cézanne's studio in France.
Kai's pictures are kept in the house of the house on the second floor.
Yi says that the profound interest of his uncle in Chinese and American culture vividly reflects in the design of the house. For example, the slope of the roof reflects the modern butterfly roofs from the middle of the century, which are scattered in the predominantly Chinese neighborhood, while the arch of the terrace refers to historical court houses and gardens in China.
The house was designed in such a way that it took place.
The 70 -year -old Kai was born and grew up in China and moved into the Volksarmea as a railway soldier. After the protests of the Tiananmen Square in 1989, Kai China fled and moved to the United States, where he lived in Minneapolis and briefly in Boston for 13 years before he met Jiang and settled in Los Angeles.
In 1998 the couple bought a house with three bedrooms near Jian's Office in Monterey Park, which is often referred to as “little Taipei” due to the large number of immigrants from China. “It was easy for us to integrate us into the community,” says Kai.
Eight years later, when Kai got a job at Claremont Graduate University, they rented the house and moved to Rancho Cucamonga to bring the job of Kai closer.
When the couple thought about retirement in 2014, they turned to their nephew to get help with the reinterpretation of their house so that they could return to Monterey Park.
Colorful furniture from Pablo in China In cooperation with the artist Lu Biaobiao in the living room and in the dining room, the colors, symbols and textures from Kais play paintings.
Kai at home in his art studio.
After years of work as an artist, Kai had modest dreams for retirement: he wanted a place where he and his wife would feel comfortable. “Peter wanted to design a special house with art,” says Kai.
For logistical and financial reasons, they decided to tear down the original house that tenants had rented for 16 years, but keep the pool. Today they are glad that they did it. “The pool inspired everything the house is special,” says Yi about the project, inquiries about maximum living space, a bedroom on the first floor with a bathroom in a suite for aging purposes and a art studio for Kai.
“I told him to use his imagination,” says Kai. “I am a first generation from China. He is a second generation immigrant. I thought:” Let's take his American ideas and my Chinese ideas and combine them. “
The civil engineer Halle Doenitz, left, architect de Peter Yi, homeowner Yi Kai and Jian Zheng and general entrepreneur Larry Ton in the house.
Architect de Peter Yi in the shadow of the balcony.
As an immigrant, Kai says that he is very proud of the multicultural group, which has worked on the home project for over 30 months. “Our main designer Peter Yi came to the USA at the age of 5 [and] Is a second generation Chinese American, “says Kai. Halle Doenitz, our civil engineer, is a Caucasian American woman. Mz Construction has two partners, one from Hong Kong and one from the Chinese mainland, and Larry Ton, our contractor, has an art background.”
Your efforts have paid off. The interiors of the 2,200 square meter house are expansion and airy and have simple access to nature. In particular, the outer kitchen on the other side of the inner kitchen is a feature that the couple uses daily for its pan recipes.
Palm trees appear in the bathroom window on the second floor.
Water waves from the swimming pool echoed through the rooms of the first floor.
Asymmetrical windows in both floors of the house offer indirect lighting for Kais works of art, react to the geometry of the house and suspect its playfulness.
Like the view from the terrace, the visual lines change constantly – palm trees appear in a window, a neighboring tree in another – depending on where they look. “The windows react to the various views and the interesting topography of Los Angeles,” says Yi. “There is beauty in the side wall and in the trees of the neighbor. The view extends the house outwards.”
Similarly, colorful furniture from Pablo in China in cooperation with the artist Lu Biaobiao in the living room and in the dining room play the colors, symbols and textures from Kais paintings.
On the upper floor, in which a tea room connects to the main bedroom and the main bathroom, the entire living area that includes the office in which Kai stores its painting is connected to the circumferential terrace. In addition to 450 square meters of balcony on the second floor, the terrace gives another 650 square meter shaded outdoor space on the ground floor.
Part of the height walls give a corner of the outside deck the feeling of a room. “It's nice to watch how the light changes all day,” says Kai.
Although he lives in Cincinnati, the couple's architect says that it was worthwhile for him to visit his family in her new home, which ultimately cost $ 1.5 million for the construction. “It was astonishing to see how they use the house,” he says.
Ultimately, Kai hopes to open the house for salons, exhibitions and intercultural exchange for the public.
“America is my home,” he says, “a place where I realized many dreams and achieved both personal and professional success. It is also the place where I want to give something back by helping everything I can – my art, my knowledge and energy – to enrich American culture for culture.”
Added Zheng: “Everyone can appreciate art, and everyone can love it. But not everyone really brings art into their daily life or integrates them into their way of life. Our goal is to inspire a shift in the way of thinking in order to show that art is something that everyone can enjoy and that it can be a meaningful part of everyday life.”