Glass Townhouses are a pair of three-story townhouses, divided vertically with no common walls, that use many of the eco strategies and materials that have become Sander Architects signatures.

 

These brand new, three-story townhouses are set on a corner lot half a block from the famous Venice Canals and three blocks from the beach. To capture the famous Southern California light, the long side of the building is a double skin of translucent panels and glass. In the interior, this creates dramatic floor-to-ceiling translucent walls that allow diffused natural light to pour into the rooms.

 

The name is reinforced by the design – vertical glass planes slide past one another, past odd-shaped openings and create the skin of the building.

 

 

The condos use many green materials and have unique features like double-height translucent walls along the stairwells. The Canal Side unit has exposed steel structure that creates a soaring metal sculpture up the double height entrance. The Venice Boulevard side unit has views of the Santa Monica mountains and a sense of being in the tree tops from both upper floors.

 

 

“We wanted the entire northwest facade of the building, which is about seventy feet long, to be translucent. Instead of sections of opaque shearwalls to resist seismic forces, we placed a large steel frame at one end of this facade. That steel structure resists all the shear forces generated by that wall of non-structural material,” explains Whitney Sander. “Without the steel frame, the wall could not have been translucent, and the building would not be able to glow at night.”