Zaha Hadid’s plans for a private house in San Diego, California, have taken a significant step forward with approval from the city’s planning commission.  The house, which has attracted local objections over its size and failure to “fit in”, will still have to be approved by the council.  Hadid applied to demolish an existing house on Whale Watch Way, La Jolla, within San Diego’s northern city limits following architectural photography, and replace it with a 1,200sq m four-bedroom house with an indoor pool.

The practice described the building, which sits on a 0.2ha site, as an “introverted sculptural structure” with a sharply spiked roofline.  Planning commissioner Eric Naslund, also a principal at San Diego firm Studio E Architects, said: “I was quite taken with the design.”