Private Review
Malibu / Los Angeles

Philippe Naouri Studio creates and reimagines significant California residences, from the first reading of the property to the last object in the room.

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Philippe Naouri Studio Malibu · Los Angeles

Preserve the idea. Improve the life.

We do not reproduce the past. We work from its intelligence.

The best Mid-Century Modern houses were built around proportion, light, structure, land and the way people actually live. Our work begins there. We keep what gives a house its authority, remove what obscures it, and introduce what contemporary life requires, from furniture and art to

landscape.

Houses with a point of view.

Selected houses

Houses with a point of view.

  1. 5901 Filaree Heights · Malibu

    Filaree Heights

  2. 2460 Sunset Plaza Drive · Los Angeles

    Sunset Plaza

  3. 8818 Rising Glen Place · Los Angeles

    Rising Glen

  4. 20737 Cool Oak Way · Malibu

    Cool Oak Way

  5. Loma Vista Drive · Beverly Hills

    Loma Vista

  6. 20706 Rockpoint · Malibu

    East Rockpoint

  7. 5637 Busch Drive · Malibu

    Busch Drive

  8. 2977 Passmore Drive · Los Angeles

    Casa Kuderna

House 1 of 8: Filaree Heights

malibu
los angeles

The Studio

Small by design. Deep where it matters.

Keep what givesthe house its authority.

Design direction, development, architecture and collectible interiors are brought together around one point of view. The first question is not what we can add. It is what is already right here: a line, a view, a tree, a material, a piece of history. We keep that.

A good house beginsbefore the finishes.

Then we solve everything that prevents the house from living well today. Architecture and interiors are never treated as separate worlds. The plan affects the furniture. The landscape affects the light. The materials affect how the house ages.

The budget, permit path and construction reality matter from the beginning — because good design has to survive contact with real life.

Design the day,not the photograph.

The watercolour floor plan of 20737 Cool Oak Way, Malibu: the rooms, terraces and pool drawn in plan.
20737 Cool Oak Way from the air at sunset: the built house among its oaks, the coast beyond.
The planThe houseReveal the house from the air over the watercolour plan

Some clients arrive with a house they love but cannot quite live in. Others arrive with land, a view and a complicated path to permission. In both cases, we start before style: site, proportion, approach, light, circulation, structure and what the property is capable of becoming.

The site is partof the interior.

Detailscarry the value.

Warm woods. Honed stone. Hand-finished plaster. Bronze and anodized metal. Low-iron glass. Materials chosen for how they age, not how they photograph.

Will it still feel rightin twenty years?

A good piece of furniture should have a life beyond the room. Vintage and contemporary pieces are mixed with custom work. Nothing should feel like it arrived in one delivery.

A calm processfor complicated houses.

One weekly owner meeting. One live decision log. One current budget. One current schedule. The client sees one current picture of the project: where we are, what needs a decision, what comes next. Not the complexity behind it.

The Studio / How we work

Four ways into one point of view.

The Studio →

  1. 01The HouseThe architecture, from the first line to the first night home.
  2. 02The InteriorCollected with conviction.
  3. 03The Full CommissionThe House and The Interior, under one hand.
  4. 04The Maison StudyBefore committing, understand what the property can become.

Our point of view

Not every house
needs more.

Sometimes the right decision is to open. Sometimes to remove. Sometimes to restore. Sometimes to rebuild. Sometimes to leave something exactly where it is.
The work begins by knowing the difference.

WE PREFER ONE
IMPORTANT DECISION
TO TEN
DECORATIVE ONES.

The interior should not arrive after the architecture. It should grow from the same logic.

Every project should tell the story of a decision. Not just what the house looks like — what was understood, preserved and changed.

Projects

Selected Mid-Century Modern houses
Malibu · Los Angeles · Beverly Hills

See all projects

Filaree Heights, Malibu
Sunset Plaza, Los Angeles
Rising Glen, Los Angeles
Cool Oak Way, Malibu
Loma Vista, Beverly Hills
Serra Road, Malibu
Seaboard Road, Malibu
Calvin Avenue, Tarzana
Floris Heights, Malibu
Big Rock, Malibu

See all projects

Mid-Century Modern Archive

The drawings
we work from.

Measured survey drawings, period photographs and the houses that turned California Mid-Century Modern into a way of living — Neutra, the Eameses, Koenig, Lautner — collected as reference for the studio's own work and read against it.

plates
26
survey sheets
11
Los Angeles & Palm Springs
1929–79
Open the archive
Plans & ProportionThen / Now
Measured drawing: aerial isometric of the Lovell Health House from the southwest, with its hillside stairs and pool.
04The house as structure, topography and air.Richard Neutra · 1929
Richard Neutra seated in a tubular steel chair, holding a photograph of the Beard House, 1935.
01Richard Neutra, 1935. Architecture as an instrument for living.Richard Neutra · 1935
The Stahl House by Pierre Koenig, its glass pavilion cantilevered over the Hollywood Hills.
19Pierre Koenig / Stahl House / 1960 — structure reduced to its essential line.Pierre Koenig · 1960
Measured drawing: overall first and second floor plans of the Eames House and studio.
09Industrial logic. Domestic life.Charles & Ray Eames · 1949
The house begins
before the finishes.
Build new. Restore. Rebuild.
Reimagine

The house
is never only
a design
problem.

Philippe Naouri on the glazed bridge of a Mid-Century Modern house, trees rising through the courtyard beside him.

Philippe Naouri
Founder, Creative Director & Development

For more than fifteen years, Philippe Naouri has worked across the design, development and reimagination of significant residences in Malibu and Los Angeles. That experience shapes the studio. Philippe remains directly involved in the creative direction of every commission, from the first read of the property through the final edit of the house.

Philippe Naouri
Founder, Creative Director & Development

A decision about a wall is also a decision about proportion. A decision about glazing changes light, energy and landscape. A piece of furniture can change the way a room is understood. A badly conceived addition can erase what made a house valuable in the first place.

Philippe Naouri
Founder, Creative Director & Development

Jacobsen Arquitetura joins selected commissions as the studio's architecture partner, bringing the scale, technical rigor and international residential experience required to resolve complex houses. The relationship is not an external credit added at the end. Jacobsen becomes part of the project team.

Jacobsen Arquitetura
Architecture Partner

Jacobsen in a black-and-white portrait, hands clasped under the chin, dark-rimmed glasses.Jacobsen Arquitetura wordmark.

Architecture Partner

Jacobsen Arquitetura

Selected recognition

Awards, exhibitions and distinctions of the practice and of Bernardes & Jacobsen, its earlier form.

  1. 2023Architectural Digest México y Latinoamérica: Jacobsen Arquitetura elected one of the 100 most relevant and creative architecture firms in Latin America.
  2. 2023Architizer: Jacobsen Arquitetura elected one of the 25 best Brazilian architecture firms.
  3. 2022Prix Versailles 2022: Special Prize for an Exterior, Central America, the South and the Caribbean, shopping malls category.
  4. 2018Lecture at the Société française des architectes, Paris: “A vision of paradise”.
  5. 2015Participation in the Argentine Biennial.
  6. 2015Casa Cidade Mundo exhibition, Hélio Oiticica Art Center, Rio de Janeiro.
  7. 2014Winner of the Architizer A+ Awards, Museum category, popular vote (River Art Museum).
  8. 2013Nine New (Neun Neue): emerging architects from Brazil, Frankfurt.
  9. 2013Veja Rio Award: Paulo Jacobsen elected Carioca of the Year, architecture category.
  10. 2011Wallpaper*: Bernardes & Jacobsen elected among the 100 most influential people in the world.
  11. 2011Globo Talent Award.
  12. 2010Bernardes & Jacobsen awarded at the International Architecture Biennial, São Paulo.
  13. 2009Bernardes & Jacobsen awarded by the Institute of Architects of Brazil (IAB) for two residential projects.
  14. 2009River (Sea) Art Museum project.
  15. 2008Second place in the competition for the Image and Sound Museum (MIS), Rio de Janeiro.
  16. 2006Bernardes & Jacobsen take part in the “Encore Moderne” exhibition, Paris.

The Journal

Notes from the houses

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Press

In the press

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Malibu, California

From the first line
of the house
to the last object
in the room.

Design, Interiors & Development
Malibu, California