First Office
First Office
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Green House

First Office

Green House, Mt. Washington. Photography Eric Staudenmaier.

Year: 2025

Location: Mt. Washington, Los Angeles, California

First Office Team: Andrew Atwood, Anna Neimark, Jono Coles, Bailey Bestul, Aram Radfar

Structural Engineer: Nous Engineering

Contractor and Landscape Architect: Double Iris

Photography: Eric Staudenmaier

Green House is an attached accessory dwelling unit, located in the Mt. Washington neighborhood of Los Angeles. Conceived as a flexible primary residence for a single occupant, it allowed the existing front house to be rented while maintaining the option to connect when hosting friends or family. During the construction process, the client married, prompting a programmatic shift that reconfigured the plan to accommodate a primary bedroom suite, a home office, and an art studio.

First Office
First Office

Green house model photos.

First Office

©Staudenmaier

The existing house was left largely intact, and the new work was conceived as an adjacent building that happens to be attached. Between old and new, a thickened connecting spine was developed as both buffer and infrastructure, housing circulation, storage, & mechanical systems, to mediate acoustically and spatially between the two dwellings.

First Office
First Office

Green house plans.

First Office
First Office

©Staudenmaier

First Office
First Office
First Office
First Office

CNC-milled model (Valchromat MDF).

Our clients and collaborators on the Green House, a landscape architect and an artist, built the project on a modest budget, also acting as general contractor. A deliberate no-demolition strategy minimized waste and intrusion, allowing the couple to remain in the existing house throughout construction. A delicate approach shaped both the construction process and the architectural logic of the addition, prioritizing restraint, reuse, and directness over heavy-handed transformation.

First Office
First Office
First Office
First Office

©Staudenmaier

The two main rooms are organized around a sequence of views to the mountains to the North and East, with larger openings framing distant vistas and smaller windows calibrated for light, ventilation, and privacy.

First Office
First Office
First Office
First Office

©Staudenmaier

Leftover construction materials, as well as windows and double doors from the existing house, were saved to build an auxiliary “10% shed.” Its size – 70sf, or ten percent the size of the addition – align with typical material purchasing buffers, transforming what is typically trashed into a functional garden structure. Other leftover materials were used to make steps, pathways, and a lattice.

First Office
First Office

©Staudenmaier

Green House

First Office

Green House, Mt. Washington. Photography Eric Staudenmaier.

Year: 2025

Location: Mt. Washington, Los Angeles, California

First Office Team: Andrew Atwood, Anna Neimark, Jono Coles, Bailey Bestul, Aram Radfar

Structural Engineer: Nous Engineering

Contractor and Landscape Architect: Double Iris

Photography: Eric Staudenmaier

Green House is an attached accessory dwelling unit, located in the Mt. Washington neighborhood of Los Angeles. Conceived as a flexible primary residence for a single occupant, it allowed the existing front house to be rented while maintaining the option to connect when hosting friends or family. During the construction process, the client married, prompting a programmatic shift that reconfigured the plan to accommodate a primary bedroom suite, a home office, and an art studio.

First Office
First Office

Green house model photos.

First Office

©Staudenmaier

The existing house was left largely intact, and the new work was conceived as an adjacent building that happens to be attached. Between old and new, a thickened connecting spine was developed as both buffer and infrastructure, housing circulation, storage, & mechanical systems, to mediate acoustically and spatially between the two dwellings.

First Office
First Office

Green house plans.

First Office
First Office

©Staudenmaier

First Office
First Office
First Office

CNC-milled model (Valchromat MDF).

Our clients and collaborators on the Green House, a landscape architect and an artist, built the project on a modest budget, also acting as general contractor. A deliberate no-demolition strategy minimized waste and intrusion, allowing the couple to remain in the existing house throughout construction. A delicate approach shaped both the construction process and the architectural logic of the addition, prioritizing restraint, reuse, and directness over heavy-handed transformation.

First Office
First Office
First Office
First Office

©Staudenmaier

The two main rooms are organized around a sequence of views to the mountains to the North and East, with larger openings framing distant vistas and smaller windows calibrated for light, ventilation, and privacy.

First Office
First Office
First Office
First Office

©Staudenmaier

Leftover construction materials, as well as windows and double doors from the existing house, were saved to build an auxiliary “10% shed.” Its size – 70sf, or ten percent the size of the addition – align with typical material purchasing buffers, transforming what is typically trashed into a functional garden structure. Other leftover materials were used to make steps, pathways, and a lattice.

First Office
First Office

©Staudenmaier

First Office was founded in 2011 by Anna Neimark and Andrew Atwood to create a dialog between architectural practice and academic discourse. Their collaborative work spans buildings, exhibitions, and publications, all rooted in the belief that architecture is a form of cultural production.

The practice has engaged with leading institutions, including the MAK Center for Art and Architecture, the Chicago and Venice Biennials, MoMA PS1’s Young Architects Program, and the Architectural League of New York. The projects and essays of First Office have been recognized with awards and compiled in Nine Essays (Treatise Press, 2015), as well as in Andrew’s publication Not Interesting: On the Limits of Criticism in Architecture (Applied Research and Design, 2017).

Anna Neimark
Design Faculty and Visual Studies Coordinator, SCI-Arc
anna.neimark@gmail.com

Andrew Atwood
Licensed Architect and Associate Professor, UC Berkeley
w.andrew.atwood@gmail.com

Logo and La Grotesque typeface by La Bureau.
Site: Mr. Wren & Friends. 

First Office was founded in 2011 by Anna Neimark and Andrew Atwood to create a dialog between architectural practice and academic discourse. Their collaborative work spans buildings, exhibitions, and publications, all rooted in the belief that architecture is a form of cultural production.

The practice has engaged with leading institutions, including the MAK Center for Art and Architecture, the Chicago and Venice Biennials, MoMA PS1’s Young Architects Program, and the Architectural League of New York. The projects and essays of First Office have been recognized with awards and compiled in Nine Essays (Treatise Press, 2015), as well as in Andrew’s publication Not Interesting: On the Limits of Criticism in Architecture (Applied Research and Design, 2017).

Anna Neimark
Design Faculty and Visual Studies Coordinator, SCI-Arc
anna.neimark@gmail.com

Andrew Atwood
Licensed Architect and Associate Professor, UC Berkeley
w.andrew.atwood@gmail.com

Logo and La Grotesque typeface by La Bureau.
Site: Mr. Wren & Friends.