The lives of Courtney Wilk-Mandel and Danny Mandel have changed considerably in five years. In 2019, the newly married couple purchased a single-story home with a backyard in Los Angeles’s Mar Vista that felt cavernous after their small apartment in Silver Lake. A small backyard with a one-car garage in the corner was the cherry on top. The novelty, however, only lasted a couple of months. Shortly after the pandemic kept them indoors, the birth of their first child, Remy, transformed their once-spotless floor into a maze of toys. The playful design and colorful renderings produced by local architecture firm Byben matched the whimsy of the family’s newest member—while also maintaining the functionality required to double their living space.

Following a year of back-and-forth, they decided on a dramatic conversion, turning the one-car garage that sat in the corner of the backyard into a two-story ADU. This enables the new structure to stand alone as a sculptural object while still remaining in dialogue with the old.

From the street, the vertical ipe wood slats that wrap around the facade poke out above the roofline of the main house. From the backyard, the subtle color variations of the slats provide a calming backdrop for outdoor family time. But the real kicker is the ADU’s quirky offset.

The sculptural form isn’t just fun—it’s borne from necessity. The second floor is shifted a few feet from the ground floor in response to a large utility pole at the back of the property. The shift also resulted in a slight cantilever to create a small awning over the front door that allows it to remain open even when it rains. “Offsetting the floor plates ended up making the 890 square feet of interior space feel like much more,” said Byben founder Ben Warwas, who later nicknamed the project “Offset ADU” for its dynamic side profile.

The sliding glass door is angled toward the sliding glass door of the main house, and the two structures are connected by a newly completed deck where there was once a large concrete driveway. The cool gray stucco that pokes through the vertical wood slats of the ADU is a few shades lighter than that of the main house.

The ground floor is a multipurpose room that takes in a generous amount of natural light from all four sides. On good weather days, the family slides both doors open to live out the Southern California dream of blurring the distinction of indoors and outdoors.

But more than anything, the ground floor was envisioned as a play area for their two children. An expansive storage space beneath the stairs hides their toys, making it possible to tidy up the space for guests at a moment’s notice, as well as pantry items for the open plan kitchen. The adjacent powder room became an opportunity to pack their more eccentric tastes within a compact space, including a morrone-colored terrazzo countertop and Fantini Balocchi fixtures.

There are many spots within the home that show off the architect’s dynamic interplay of geometry, color, and light, but one of the family’s favorites is a view from anywhere within the stairwells. Its straight and curved elements, all painted in a bright butter-yellow, appear to glow in unity thanks to a well-positioned skylight.

The room on the top floor primarily serves as an office featuring unobstructed views in several directions that offer momentary respites from work. A tall wooden bookshelf, topped with hamburger-shaped candles and colorful coffee table books, conceals a Murphy bed for friends and family when they visit.

Here, a tall slender window that overlooks the backyard extends beyond the ceiling line and is topped by a mirror. “We first tried to make it a skylight meeting a window, but it just became too expensive,” said Warwas. “Then we decided on a mirror, which creates a funny little moment. Everyone wants to look up there and they are surprised to see their reflection staring back at them.”

At the top of the stairs is a small deck with a view toward the backyard—a feature the architect dreamt up to make the most use of the offset design scheme. “I try to give clients an additional type of space they don’t already have and maybe didn’t even consider for themselves,” said Warwas. From here, the cheers of students attending football games at the nearby Venice High School mix with the sway of recently planted trees.