Kevin Daly and Dana Cuff bought a small, rundown home in Santa Monica, and worried about the lack of density in LA, they decided to create two homes on the small lot. Not wanting to prioritize one for light and views, they built identical skinny homes that cut in and out of each other to harvest light and access to the outdoors.

Reacting to “arcane and arbitrary zoning regulations”, Daly designed a long prismatic object “faceted and shaped to meet requirements for setback and upper story stepbacks”.

They explain: “The units are seemingly identical—with living, kitchen, and dining downstairs and a loft mezzanine, private interior courtyard, and rooftop garden above—yet one unit is not the mirror image of the other. Known in the natural sciences as chirality, a form of nearly identical difference makes each unit unique yet the same, conveying a reciprocal relationship between elements as they move away from the central wall in opposite configurations. This linearity allows both units to have street frontage, a unique amenity that is not possible on typical lots where townhouses are built.”