KUBE in the News: The Washington Post

Kube Architecture: Modernists in a city of tradition

The "See Through House" was named
for the glass floor panels that channel
sunshine from skylights through
the center of the home. 

By Deborah K. Dietsch, Published: March 15

Plastic window sheeting flapped in the cold breeze as architects Janet Bloomberg and Richard Loosle-Ortega unrolled drawings to consult with the owners of a Chevy Chase rambler, now gutted to expose rafters and floor joists.

Lawyer Patricio Grane, 39, and radiologist Alexia Egloff, 35, listened to Bloomberg’s ideas before weighing in on the placement of lighting fixtures within the open floor plan. They already had agreed to bare cinder-block walls, concrete floors and huge expanses of glass.

“We wanted something different, not the same old brick and drywall,” says Grane, who estimates that he and his wife will spend $410,000 on the construction. “We picked these architects because they specialize in contemporary design. That’s all they do.”

Bloomberg, 47, and Loosle-Ortega, 58, specialize in offering edgy alternatives to the standard residential remodeling of crown moldings and Shaker cabinets. Their eight-year-old firm, Kube Architecture, is known for transforming urban rowhouses and suburban split-levels into flowing spaces defined by bright finishes and hard-edged details.

“We call ourselves the warm modernists,” says Loosle-Ortega. “We are different from other architects who do contemporary work in our use of colors and textures.”

Janet Bloomberg, Richard Loosle-Ortega,
with homeowners Brigitte and
Gaines Mimms.

During a tour of Kube’s most recent renovations, the architects pointed out a tangerine acrylic countertop, red cement-board paneling, cork floors and multi-hued mood lighting to prove that minimalist design need not be cold or austere. They use such vivid elements to animate clean-lined interiors as open as lofts.

Few people strolling past their remodeled rowhouses would guess that behind the historic facades are sleek spaces in which most everything is new. “They take very traditional housing and slice it up in ways to create a different experience inside,” says Stanley Hallet, professor emeritus and former dean of Catholic University’s architecture school, where Bloomberg and Loosle-Ortega have taught. “Both of them come out of an academic tradition, and it’s been interesting to see them apply ideas about materials and transparency to their work.”

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