Buff and Hensman

California architects Conrad Buff and Donald Hensman produced an impressive catalog of work over their long partnership, including a contribution to Art & Architecture magazine's Case Study House Program, celebrity homes, and Ronald Reagan's Governor's Mansion. Buff and Hensman's houses epitomized the increasingly casual lifestyle that revolutionized social habits across the United States in the 1960s. An almost perfect climate in and around Los Angeles made it possible for the architects to develop a wood-frame and glass-panel architecture that lends seamlessly with its surroundings. When California building code forced a change in their design methodology, they began a new phase of their creative life that reinvigorated their practice.
This book is the first comprehensive look at their achievement, and includes commentary on their most important projects as well as a complete chronology of all of their work.

James Steele has been an Associate Professor at the University of Southern California in Los Angeles since 1991.