California Contemporary

August 1, 2018

Kirkpatrick has been designing contemporary homes in Southern California for more than 30 years. This lifestyles monograph outlines his philosophy for design while sharing 160 exquisite photographs featuring 24 custom homes constructed by him and his firm KAA Design. Kirkpatrick believes in a relationship between nature and living spaces; all his designs weave elements of the outdoors with the indoors. To him, the land dictates the house design; he's spent his life "looking at property, thinking about how the people who live there will use it and about how to connect them to their land." His design principles include seamless outdoor-indoor living, form, scale and proportion, whimsy and imperfection and gravity-defying proportions. Among the featured residences are a nautically inspired home on the edge of the Pacific, a soaring, cantilevered hillside home with a spectacular view of the city of Los Angeles, and a house set on a plateau conceived as a series of linked pavilions interspersed with gardens and outdoor entertainment space. VERDICT A beautiful coffee-table book for anyone who loves contemporary design and architectural masterpieces.--Sandra Knowles, South Carolina State Lib., Columbia

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