This is a picture of the Zeidler Residence in Venice. Last Sunday, the Los Angeles Times profiled Culver City-based architect Steven Ehrlich, whose firm designed this stunning building. Ehrlich recently accepted the 2011 Maybeck Award, the prestigious honor bestowed by the American Institute of Architects California Council. Ehrlich serves as the design principal of the 30-person firm Ehrlich Architects and is also a visiting professor at the University of Southern California.

In the article, Ehrlich describes his design philosophy, which he calls "multicultural modernism."

...we live in a very complex world, a very interesting world and that there is no single architectural design solution as you apply it to different locations. And it certainly doesn't work if you apply it to different cultures. For example, why would a building in Beijing look like a building in Boston? … Our society and other societies around the world should embrace modern technology that takes us to wonderful new places and simultaneously listen to people and to place and to culture.

He also talks about one of his firm's recent projects that he is most proud of, the new parliament building for the United Arab Emirates.

I think our solution was selected in part because it was very rooted in the culture, and our big idea was that we created a dome that's 100 meters in diameter. The dome is actually a sunscreen device that creates a veil over most of the site and therefore creates a micro-climate where people can enjoy themselves outside near fountains as well as greatly reducing the heat load on the buildings below as well as the people.

Here's a rendering of the interior of the building.

Ehrlich also describes the Kendell Square Biotech Lab his firm just completed in Cambridge, Mass.

Inside the [biotech] building is a soaring atrium, where everybody is connected not only horizontally but vertically too, because you can see activity [around] this very large atrium. And we've extended certain areas of the balconies and created what I like to call "living rooms in the sky," and it's here where people are really bumping into each other, so it's creating community.

Archithings.com also offers some amazing pictures of a residence in Venice the firm designed -- the 700 Palms Residence.