Site, Structure & Alterations
The Sun Tech Townhomes are an 18 condominium Utopian European village in fully integrated High Tech style erected in 1981 on a 150 x 160 foot lot at the corner of 28th and Pearl streets in the Sunset Park neighborhood of the City of Santa Monica. Sun Tech is a collection of four-level Townhomes colored in multi-muted-pastels set one-half level above the concrete roof of the secure subterranean garage which situates them on a plinth concealing the garage. The four levels are Level 1, sleeping/bathing; Level 2: living/dining; Level 3, den/study and Level 4, the fully-habitable roof. An outdoor garden area and decks are present.
The four building site plan, with buildings rotated at 90 degrees from the next, allows for privacy in each Townhome. Sun Tech is approached by concrete stairs from either 28th or Pearl Street which narrow as they approach the pedestrian “streets,” or by stairwells from the garage concealed in curved lightwells. Navigating the “streets” one meets ones’ neighbors, forming a communal sense and making strangers apparent, thus contributing to a sense of security among community residents.
Sun Tech is constructed economically of clearspan structural framing between bearing walls with large, stepped-rectangular areas of curtain wall tinted glazing at the outer elevations allowing for passive solar gain and natural cross ventilation from the Pacific Ocean. Exterior finishes are plaster; aluminum sash glazing; tubular steel railings along stairways, bridges and crowning the roof; paired smoke stack/chimneys at the outer elevation of each Townhome; industrial lights on goose neck stands along the interior “streets” of the village; industrial caged lights on the exterior elevations; curved lightwells concealing staircases within; roof passive solar water heating system with solar panels arrayed across a horizontal right angled steel structure with adjoining curved back water heater cabinet of faux steel comprised of timber/drywall with a stucco coating, arranged about the roof offering a sculptural quality to the fourth level solar panels. (The solar panels have been removed as have the water heaters, but the structures remain). The roof is fully habitable with private patios seguing into communal space. The exit to the roof and the emergency escape ladders of structural steel, therefrom, along with concrete stairs provide the second legally required egress from the Townhomes.
The only changes that have occurred to the exterior form of the Sun Tech Townhomes deal with function: The solar panels were removed when they ceased to function reliably and the water heaters were removed in 2012-2013 when the roof was repaired/repainted. Tankless water heater replace original tanks in some cabinets. There is currently discussion among the residents of adding back solar panels, but for a different purpose.
The landscape liners along the interior “streets” were replaced/waterproofed and the goose neck street lamps were more securely anchored in original locations to grant greater stability to the infrastructure during spring/summer of 2016. Discussions are underway around the original Wemple landscape plans to be replanted in the interior landscape areas outside each Townhome entry. Previously, in 2004 and again in 2012, decks and 18 balconies, 3 stairways and roof surfacing were resealed and waterproofed.
Individual “row house” type steps, from the internal “streets” lead up one-half level to the Level 2/main entry single panel wood door to each Townhome. The kitchen is sited next to the entry, granting interior views of the exterior “streets,” giving a sense of security and community as one experiences ones’ neighbors strolling along the “streets.” Innovative use of interior space includes double height volumes of 18 feet combining Levels 2 and 3 which include the living room/dining room space of Level 2 with the mezzanine/loft of Level 3 within each floor plan, enhanced by natural lighting provided by collections of tinted glass squares in the basic rectangular shape with stepped up or down corners, most often of more than one Level in height.
Ventilation is provided by silver anodized framed aluminum canopy windows within the collections of fixed square windows. HVAC (from the roof) is delivered via exposed ducting with built-in vents. Originally, the interior air circulation system cycled warm air from Level 3 to Level 1 in winter and reversed the process in summer. Heat is also delivered via hybrid wood/gas fireplaces in the living room and the master bedroom. Level 2 also has a kitchen and, in some units a powder room/half-bath. Two bedrooms, two bathrooms and a laundry area are at Level 1 and some of the Townhomes also have a lowered exit from this level to the exterior. Some of the kitchens and bathrooms have been rehabilitated. A list of permits for changes not discussed in the above text follows.
1986: Sandblast [does not state what]
1990: Replace 2 water heaters.
2006: Unit H: Remodel bathroom on 2nd floor and structural framing/walls (384 SF).
2006: Unit A: Remodel bath including structural framing/walls (384 SF).
2006: Unit I: Remodel 2 bathrooms & replace kitchen sink & tile. Additional lighting in bedrooms plus drywall repair.
2010: Unit E: Remodel (2) full bathrooms and powder room. Add lights on bedroom and bathrooms.
2015: Unit D: Interior remodel: Kitchen and (2) bathroom (Common area). Replace the HVAC system in same location.
The exquisitely designed and constructed Sun Tech Townhomes hold forth. For an extended version of “A. Description…” please refer to “City Landmark Assessment and Evaluation Report, Sun Tech Townhomes, 2433 28th Street, Santa Monica, CA 90405.”
Architectural Significance
Sun Tech Townhomes were conceived by UFO--Urban Forms Organization: A partnership of Steve Andre aka Steve Wiseman, developer/architect and David Van Hoy, architect, who designed the condominium/townhomes in High Tech style in 1979 and contracted, completed, and began sales in 1981. Sun Tech is architecturally significant in many aspects.
Sun Tech was significant in that it was designed by the architect Steve Andre, aka Steve Wiseman, who also served as developer, thus having no client to answer to. He was joined by architect David Van Hoy, recently of the first graduating class of Sci-Arc (Southern California Institute of Architecture), the new and completely innovative architecture school then based in Santa Monica. Van Hoy had apprenticed with Ray Kappe, the far-thinking founder of Sci-Arc. This combination teamed with marketing maven John Kaufman to develop, design, market and sell, in co-operation with Harleigh Sandler Realtors, the 18 Townhomes known as Sun Tech.
Sun Tech is four stories in height, thus defying the existing condominium ordinance in place in 1979 which,” were allowed for only three habitable stories. Three legal stories plus a fully-habitable fourth level previously known merely as, “the roof” composed of: Level 1: two bedrooms, bathrooms and laundry; Level 2: entry, kitchen, and in some Townhomes a powder room, plus a double volume living room and dining room combined with Level 3’s loft, which equaled an 18 foot high open space. Most Level 3s also include a bridge/walkway to the Level 3 patio and exterior stairs to the forbidden Level 4: “the roof.” The making the roof a fully-habitable Level 4 including the required fire egress via tubular steel fire ladders and concrete stairs from lower levels. Also, on the roof are private patios connecting through communal space, perfect for parties and actual weddings, a passive solar water heating system with tubular metal railings neatly wrapping it up. unique roof includes the, tubular steel fire ladders providing a second means of egress from each Townhome along with the concrete stairs from each lower level, and tubular steel railings crowning the whole. This was significant because the Santa Monica condominium zoning allowed for only 3 habitable stories, but the architects bested it by right angle steel triangle which was arrayed with solar panels and a curved-back metal cabinet adjacent, which held the tank for water heated by the passive solar system. Also, there is a HVAC unit for each Townhome, and along the edge of the roof, paired smokestacks for the two fireplaces of each townhome
Sun Tech Townhomes were designed in a very unusual style for residential design: High Tech, softened by a subtle, multi-muted-pastel colorization granted by architectural colorist Tina Beebe. It utilized tinted glazing set in anodized aluminum frames, both fixed and canopy; exposed air-conditioning ducting with built-in vents, and tubular steel railings around and up the stairways, adding a sculptural quality; smoke-stack-like paired chimneys serving the living room and master bedroom hybrid wood/gas fireplaces. There originally was a built-in system which cycled air downward in winter and upward in summer, maintaining an equalized interior climate. The exterior lighting is totally industrial: Goose-neck industrial along the “streets” and caged industrial lights in patterns along the exterior walls and on some interior “street” walls.
The Utopian European village is unique in the City of Santa Monica and in the world. It is still photographed by architects, architectural students, aficionados, as well as casual passersby. It has been published in this nation’s architectural journals and magazines as well as related and unrelated publications, both here and in the world-at-large. Although a mere 35 years of age at this writing, it is Landmark worthy.
The utopian village exterior of the four buildings are massed at right angles to each other, with three around the perimeter and one down the center, atop the subterranean garage and plinth which compose Sun Tech Townhomes, with intervening pedestrian “streets” and lightwells shielding stairs down to the subterranean garage and also up to the roof of Townhomes A – F, are stucco clad with anodized aluminum sash glazing; tubular steel railings along stairways, bridges and crowning the roof; paired smoke stack/chimneys at the outer elevation of each Townhome; industrial lights on goose neck stands along the interior “streets” of the village; industrial caged lights on the exterior elevations; a multi-muted-pastel color scheme designed by local architectural colorist Tina Beebe who went on to projects with Charles Moore in multiple locations around the world. At the east/rear and south/rear of the Townhomes in those locations are landscaping with trees, shrubs and flowers designed by Emmett Wemple & Associates. The interior landscaping as well as the landscape along 28th and Pearl Streets are by the same gardener’s hand. Some decking has been added at the extreme east.
The interiors of Sun Tech grant a feeling of open space with walls of tinted glazing set in square anodized aluminum sash composed into large rectangular forms with varied corners. Each double volume Level 2 living room with hybrid wood/gas fireplace and dining room and loft on Level 3, merge into an 18’ high air-and-light-filled space. The lofts in all but Townhomes A – F have a bridge from the loft to the exterior Level 3 patio and stairs to the formerly forbidden Level 4: the roof, while Townhomes A – F possess stairs within the lightwells along the street before them, which lead to forbidden Level 4, “the roof.”
The innovative design work by this team of rapscallion cowboy-architects who defied the condominium ordinance of the City of Santa Monica, designing an integrated condominium project in the unlikely High Tech style rendered in subtle-multi-pastels, in the once agricultural area that became home to Douglas Aircraft, and then to mostly multi-family Sunset Park, in 1983 the American Institute of Architects (AIA) selected Sun Tech Townhomes for the National Merit Award for Multiple Family Housing stating, “This high-tech version of the condominium model was cited by the jury for its systematic and rather assertive development. Its images and character are clear and it includes well organized and livable rooms both inside and outside.” Sun Tech Townhomes was the first in the Multiple Family Housing category to be awarded a National Merit Award by the AIA in the City of Santa Monica.
In 1990 the Architects Designers Planners for Social Responsibility (ADPSR) selected Sun Tech Townhomes as one of thirty multi-category, bi-national projects for an exhibition with the USSR Union of Architects titled, “The Socially Responsible Environment: USA/USSR: 1980 – 1990.” The exhibition toured both nations, promoting mutual understanding and a sense of socially responsible architecture, design and planning, including the statement that Sun Tech Townhomes, “developed and designed…as an innovative alternative to the undistinguished housing prevalent in most of Santa Monica’s increasingly dense neighborhoods,” and that, “The roof becomes both a private outdoor retreat providing views and cool breezes and a required fire egress.”
Once again, Sun Tech was recognized for its architectural significance, both in the United States and in the world-at-large.
Historic Importance
It is possible that no other residential building of eighteen Townhomes shares a history as detailed as Sun Tech Townhomes. Conceived in 1979 and completed in 1981 by two architects who could be characterized as urban cowboys, one a practicing developer/architect the other recently of the first/1977 graduating class of SCI-Arc when it began in Santa Monica as a rebellious haven in which to escape the strictures of a classical architecture education and graduate a practicing architectural rebel, Steve Andre and David Van Hoy joined forces. They named their firm UFO: Urban Form Organization and set out to design and be the developers of a condominium community that would lack the feeling of same, yet be a cohesive European utopian village, of High-Tech design, with exterior muted pastel coloration; no visible automobiles or bicycles; a passive solar water heating system comprising a sculpture across its new/formerly forbidden; walls of tinted glazing in interesting variations on the rectangular form, composed of anodized aluminum framed squares fourth level—the fully habitable roof. Santa Monica had never seen four such buildings posed in a plinth at the corner of 28th and Pearl streets in the Sunset Park neighborhood, the area which had formerly provided homes for the Douglas Aircraft workers before and during World War II.
In contrast, Sun Tech Townhomes was to be a peacetime development, where the residents would walk the pedestrian “streets” to journey to the subterranean garage or visit a neighbor. The massing of the four buildings around the “streets” provides a sense of security as strangers stand out. Views are best enjoyed through the massing of squares of tinted industrial glass. The interiors were of three legal levels: Level 1: Bedrooms, bathrooms, laundry; Level 2: Living room, dining room and kitchen; Level 3: Loft and in most Townhomes a bridge to the Level 3 patio and stairs to the formerly illegal Level 4: The fully habitable roof. The roof held a steel right angle triangle with solar panels arrayed across its slanted member and adjacent to a cabinet which held the water tank of the passive solar water heating system for each of the 18 Townhomes. These formed a roof-top sculpture. Also present were the HVAC system for each townhome, a private patio melding into a communal area via curved and straight bridges and stairs from Townhomes A – H. The roof is where owners can meet and where joyous occasions such as weddings have been held. Officially, the structural steel emergency ladders from the roof provide a second means of egress from each Townhome when combined with the concrete stairs from the lower levels.
The urban cowboys of UFO were recognized at the highest level when Sun Tech Townhomes were awarded the National Honor Award by the American Institute of Architects (AIA) for Multi-Family Housing in 1983, the first Multi Family project to be so honored in Santa Monica. The jury stated, in part, “This high-tech version of the condominium model was cited by the jury for its systematic and rather assertive development. Its images and character are clear and it includes well organized and livable rooms both inside and outside.”
Sun Tech Townhomes gained international recognition where they were sited on a corner in Sunset Park with architects, students, aficionados, tourists from around the world, as well as passersby stopping to study and photograph this successful application of the High Tech style to a village of Townhomes. Further, articles were written about Sun Tech in the US as well as in international publications such as GA Houses, Architectural Record and in general market magazines.
In 1990, the rebellious architects of the Sun Tech Townhomes were contacted by Architects Designers Planners for Social Responsibly (ADPSR) in New York and the USSR Union of Architects in Moscow to announce the inclusion of Sun Tech Townhomes in an exhibition titled, “The Socially Responsible Environment: US/USSR, 1980 – 1990.” Both built works and projects represented in the exhibition were from three typological categories relating directly to primary and universal human activities in housing, institutional and public spaces and the workplace. Examples were to be equally drawn from urban, suburban and rural locations to provide a panorama of socially responsible architecture of the past decade. ADPSR defined, “socially responsible,” as, “…how a project addresses the user, the community and/or the environment.” Clearly, Sun Tech Townhomes address all three concerns in a very positive future-facing manner. A catalog of the exhibition titled, “The Socially Responsible Environment: USA/USSR 1980 -1990” was published by Princeton Architectural Press, 1991. The exhibition catalog stated that Sun Tech was designed, “as an innovative alternative to the undistinguished housing prevalent in most of Santa Monica’s increasingly dense neighborhoods.” Further, “The roof becomes both an outdoor retreat providing views and cool breezes and a required fire egress.” The exhibition opened in Manhattan and subsequently toured the USA and the USSR. Listings were found for it in the New Yorker magazine and criticism was penned in Architecture and Architectural Record.
Sun Tech Townhomes have possessed Historic Importance since a pencil was set to tracing paper to work out the innovations which were to become the unique High Tech Utopian European village in Sunset Park, Santa Monica, CA.