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HIGHtide
Caissons, piles, high-strength concrete, coated rebar, coupled with the current state of geological science are essential technology to build on precarious sites. One stretch of the Pacific Coast Highway at the eastern edge of Malibu offers bites of land reclaimed regularly by the roiling Pacific where such methods of construction are regularly employed. The owner of this narrow outcropping requested a schematic feasibility study for a 1500 square-foot habitat between the sound of rushing traffic and pounding surf. The critical factor of the mathematics was the movement of the mass of the sea. Once that equation was surmised for maximum geometries then an interior was fashioned to heighten privacy and a sense of security from the vast, unpredictable front yard. A skin of Cor-Ten Steel and structural glass would provide sonic insulation and durability meant to withstand time and tide.