Kim Schoen is used to thinking outside the box, but when rising rents prompted the artist to give up her workspace in L.A.’s Chinatown, she didn’t imagine the replacement would turn out to be literally in her own backyard. That is, not until designer Marc Frohn proposed transforming the rundown wood balcony behind her Mount Washington home into a large deck with a studio tucked below.

Frohn, cofounder of the architectural design and research firm FAR frohn&rojas, took advantage of the sloping site to carve out a nearly 500-square-foot space where Schoen could work on her photo and video installations. A bifold garage-style door runs along one entire side. When the door is closed, light washes through its translucent panels; when open, it doubles as an overhang that frames views of the San Gabriel Mountains.

Schoen. “I can shoot there, and I had blackout curtains made for when I need it dark for editing. It suits the way I work.”" layout="wide" credit="Photo by Brica Wilcox" photoUserId=""/>Schoen's first solo show in 2007 and photos of fake books she created for her 2017 exhibition, “Hawaii.”" layout="wide" credit="Photo by Brica Wilcox" photoUserId=""/>

Though Frohn kept costs in check by using materials like corrugated plastic and twin-wall polycarbonate for the door and ceramic tile for the deck and exterior stairs, construction wasn’t without challenges. “There are very minimal through ways on either side of the house, and everything had to be brought down by hand,” he says. But the designer was committed to giving Schoen both a flexible workspace and a connection to nature.

Shaded by a eucalyptus tree, the deck has become a kind of outdoor living and dining room, as well as a transition from home to work. Says Schoen, “Because the studio has an entirely different feeling from my domestic interior, I’m hoping there will be a psychological division as well. I want it to be a space that offers a blank slate for creating things.”

Project Credits:

Designer: FAR frohn&rojas LLC / @far_frohnrojas

Builders: Above Board Construction & El Castillo Construction

Engineer: IDG Structural Engineering

Tile Installer: Beto Tile

Photographer: Brica Wilcox

Appears In

A Corrugated, Plastic Bifold Door Opens Up an Artist’s Tiny L.A. Studio