Carbon Beach House | Olson Kundig

Located in Malibu along the Pacific Coast Highway, Carbon Beach House frames a responsive oasis oriented toward the views and sounds of the ocean. The home sits on a custom-designed, self-draining pier raised above the sand, resilient during high tides and storm surges while maintaining easy connection to the waterfront.

An opaque, unembellished concrete wall forms the property’s front elevation, buffering the home against traffic noise from the six-lane highway. A metal entry door creates a break in this solid façade to reveal a glass and steel stair topped by an expansive skylight, with views across the width of the house to the water beyond. The home’s open-concept floor plan is organized around an interior courtyard and cactus garden that invites natural sunlight into the interior. Sliding window walls allow the flexible living, dining, and kitchen spaces to open completely to a generous exterior deck and ocean beyond. Kinetic, horizontal louvers along the home’s southern, ocean-facing façade allow residents and their guests to manage their desired level of solar exposure, as well as providing privacy from the public beach and fully enclosing the house when unoccupied. 

The main level’s refined, industrial palette of concrete and black steel transitions to a more warm and rustic expression upstairs, with wood floors and exposed timber beams in the beach-facing primary and secondary bedroom suites. These organic materials and framed view corridors throughout the home’s private zones further link the experience of Carbon Beach House to its surrounding natural landscape.

Lead Architects: Tom Kundig, FAIA, RIBA,

Design Principal: Justin Helmbrecht,

Project Manager: Edward Lalonde, Eric Druse and Gavin Argo,

Project Architects: Gus Lynch, Project Architect

Photography: Joe Fletcher