#210: RED SEA LIVING

August 15, 2025

(Rendering by Poon Design / Lucas Ruzbasan)

At the northern tip of the Red Sea, east of Egypt, south of Jordan, an ambitious region of industry, global trade, recreation, and housing has been underway. For this newly planned community, Poon Design was invited to provide design concepts for five residential prototypes, to be mass produced throughout the neighborhood. From the archives, I share our 2019 studies that explore new ideas in the architecture of grand private estates. In this West Asian and Middle Eastern context, how is a house a home?

Modern Umbrella: Under a giant sunshade, this 85,000-square-foot residence serves an extended family. Our ‘umbrella’ protects residents from the harsh desert conditions, providing indoor/outdoor areas with the genius loci of community. The composition of the residence, an informal collection of rectilinear volumes, expresses an improvised village organized beneath the unifying canopy.

Quad of Pilotis: The rectilinear ring of upper level rooms raised on 16-foot tall columns—ala Le Corbusier’s “pilotis”—implies a courtyard. Open on four sides at ground level, this central quad connects to its dramatic surroundings of sand and sea, offering cross ventilation as well. Within this quad, the large enigmatic forms are inspired by Islamic pottery and contain family areas, meditation space, exercise zones, stairs, and elevator. Much of the 26,000-square-foot estate is located on the second floor, where rooms and hallways alternate between the exterior glass viewing to the abundant hills and the internal glass viewing into the central court.

Home as Earthwork: As an incomplete circular form, the 55,000-square-foot design provides privacy, shade, and security, with a framed view to the Red Sea. Inspired by the Earthworks and Land Art movement of the 60s, this residence is an elemental shape nestled into the earth, entered by an automobile ramp and tunnel carved into the desert sand. The two-story residence wraps around a central piazza of water with a recreational platform floating in a large reflecting pond and swimming pool.

House Makes Waves: Recalling the ocean waves, sculptural forms sweep through and around the 24,000-square-foot sculptural residence. Curving walls, sloping floors, and lifting ceilings imply domestic areas, indoor and outdoor. Expansive glass panels bring in panoramic views to the exterior setting. Such abundant transparency defers to the white sloping planes, allowing the overall expressive shape of the house to be read.

A Straight Line: 80,000 square feet of residence is captured within the simplest of architectural gestures, that of a single straight line. Deep set windows and doorways, outdoor family spaces, and private terraces are carved into the monolithic rectilinear building, providing a rhythmic façade against the vast monotony of sand.

Red Sea, Africa, Asia (photo by WikiImages from Pixabay)

#192: “DANCING ABOUT ARCHITECTURE”

August 30, 2024

Colby Residence, Los Angeles, California, by Poon Design (photo by Hunter Kerhart)

On July 25, 2024, I was interviewed for Josh Cooperman’s podcast, Convo by Design. About his forum, Josh explains, “A podcast dedicated to promoting the ideas of architects, artists, designers, tastemakers and those making a difference in the way we live. Design is personal as is a good conversation.”

At the Los Angeles showroom of Design Hardware, Josh introduced a thesis, “Architecture is an art form that also serves a primary function, that of shelter, workspace, centers for learning, social spaces and gathering places. This is a form of art with a language all its own.

“Long debated is which comes first: form or function? But that’s not quite the right question to be asking these days. A better question might be, for whom does architecture serve, and how can the space serve individual needs, both now and into the future.

Circle House, Three Lakes, Wisconsin, by Poon Design

“American society has learned to move to a new shelter space in the same way that a hermit crab moves to a new and bigger shell. We’re not hermit crabs, and this model has only served to increase costs and decrease availability of housing. Let’s think differently about how architecture can achieve different results.”

My edited responses to a few of Josh’s questions:

“Hi, my name is Anthony Poon. My architecture and design company is Poon Design Inc. We are awarding-winning architects and designers. We design houses. We design schools, religious projects, commercial, restaurants, bars, hospitality, university projects. We do it all.

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (Photo by Cansu on Pexels)

“My personal take on design is driven by my background as a musician. I love jazz, and I am a classically-trained pianist. I like bringing musical ideas and philosophies into our work. I like looking at how discipline and improvisation can come together and drive the architectural process.

“There’s the famous Goethe quote, that you probably know. ‘Architecture is frozen music.’

“Or some has said, ‘Music is melting architecture.’

“It’s fascinating to talk about both. Thelonious Monk also said, ‘talking about music is like dancing about architecture.’

I think the overlaps are very clear, with things like rhythm, ornamentation, measure, beat. For example, the beat in music is like gravity in architecture.

“My fascination with jazz is about how jazz is made—improvisationally, impromptu, spontaneous—and whether such ideas can influence the way architecture is made. Architecture is a slower, sometimes tedious process compared to jazz. Architects deal with engineering. We deal with city codes, budgets, client, etc. It can take years, sometimes decades to complete a project.

“What can we learn from jazz? How can we learn from that kind of music—to look at our creative process to find inspiration from one field of study to another?

“In fact, I am the type of artist that doesn’t separate the different fields of studies. I think of it all as one creative force, one endeavor under one artistic umbrella. I like music. I like painting. I like writing. I like architecture. And I don’t separate the four. It is one force moving together at the same time.”

Tag Archives: UMBRELLA