Case Study Houses

When the magazine Arts and Architecture launched the Case Study House Program in 1945, Davidson's CSH #1 was the first one published. Initially planned as a two-story house very similar to the Thomas Mann House, it was later built as CSH #11 in a completely new design as a one-story house on South Barrington Drive in Brentwood. CSH #1, meanwhile, was built as a one-story house in Toluca Lake, still preserved today in its original condition. The task that Davidson had to achieve for CSH #11 was to design a small, 1,100-square-foot house with two bedrooms and two bathrooms. According to the program, the architects commissioned were to develop duplicable innovative middle-class living spaces using the latest materials. Due, however, to the post-war shortage of building materials, Davidson's first realized case study house, CSH # 11, was executed in the standard post-and-beam construction. The detailed plans and interior views of this house show Davidson's rigorous handling of the small space and his use of targeted lighting in the different living areas. With no hallways or closets, this was a new direction in Davidson’s design, through which he was able to create an open floor plan which still provided individual outdoor areas for each resident. The house features another Davidson characteristic deployed in many of his homes—an enclosed service yard in front of the kitchen, which shields the house from the street.

Davidson was the only architect to fulfill the program's requirement for duplicability of the houses: CSH #15, built in La Canada Flintridge, but now demolished, was an identical copy of CSH #1.