Indoor Trees at the Office
The new trees have arrived and are being placed around our designer’s desks. The canopy provides shade for the studio, along with a dash of natural beauty.
New Studio Facade Construction
The paint is up and the raw materials are here!
The new front screen INTERSTICE designed, as an experiment with the Bosch Rexroth System, is being built by the IA team in-house.
INTERSTICE Completes Design/Build for Ghirardelli Square Holiday Market
INTERSTICE Architects designed the interior environment for this years “2014 El Mercado” Holiday Market, in partnership with local non-profit, La Cocina. The existing raw space is reconfigured using re-purposed shipping pallets and locally-sourced wine barrels to create spatial definition and material texture emphasizing the pop-up market’s retail displays.
Re-using plywood from the SF Street Food Festival, INTERSTICE re-programed the interior space for vending, seating, pathway and conversation nooks. The simple and restrained palette helps to unify the varied local crafts and holiday food selections. Festive lighting and a topographic “pallet lounge” on the second floor complete the holiday atmosphere for this year’s seasonal market place in San Francisco’s famed Ghirardelli Square.
Defining "Home"
Our Principal Architect, Andrew Dunbar, participated in the Novedge panel for “How to Succeed in Architecture: Third Places – The Architecture of Sharing”.
Each panelist was asked to explain what the term “Home” means to them in their personal life and in their practice.
Home, of course, works on many levels. I think at the very basic level it’s a kind of center… not so much geographical, it is ontological. It has a lot to do with meaning. It has very broad repercussions but also very specific qualities that belong to a sense of safety, protection and place.
My home is a city, but it’s also a place.
I’ve allowed San Francisco to change me. I’ve permitted the nesting of San Francisco to have affected me in such a way that I can be perceived as a San Franciscan.
We make it our own, and from that centering point, we are ourselves. – Dunbar
The full video can be found here.
The Final Countdown to SFSFF 2014
Recycled pallets, zip ties, gloves, Folsom Street and the IA team: it’s time for the San Francisco Street Food Festival!
Come join INTERSTICE Architects in celebrating the final year of the San Francisco Street Food Festival on Folsom Street. IA has designed and led the volunteer effort for the fifth year running, transforming Folsom Street in the Mission neighborhood to a dining district filled with people, food and festivities.
IA’s street furnishings design re-purposes shipping pallets to create banquettes for seating, eating, socializing, dining and drinking.
Thank you to La Cocina, the festival’s organizer, for your community leadership and inspired support of local food!
For more information about the schedule for the day, head over to the SFSFF website. The festival runs from 11 am – 7 pm.
Sunset Parklet: Complete!
The Sunset Parklet, designed by IA, is a public space hosted by Other Avenues Food Store and Sea Breeze Café on Judah St. between 44th and 45th Avenue.
It is officially complete and open to visitors!
The structure was designed to reflect the urban street grid and level changes of San Francisco. The movement and play of the wood units work together to create various programming opportunities.
An important feature of the design is the bike loop series. Visitors are encouraged to be one with the streetscape: to bike to the parklet, enjoy the outdoor environment, and interact with their fellow city goers.
The Parklet, ultimately, serves as a tool and compliment for business. Other Avenues and Sea Breeze Cafe customers can enjoy an extended sidewalk and the opportunity to interact with the design in multiple ways.
Hop on your two wheels and head towards the Outer Sunset!
LAWN:board
INTERSTICE Architects completed a pro bono project for the A + D Museum in Los Angeles.
The Museum’s gala fundraiser “CELEBRATE: GROUNDSWELL” was based around the theme of surf inspired design. To help honor the beach communities, IA designed and built a custom LAWN:board made of bamboo and recycled turf. It could be functional or decorative.
The board was auctioned off during the event.
Visit A+D online at www.aplusd.org.
INTERSTICE hosts Dutch Architects on Summit tour at Mission: House
INTERSTICE hosted this esteemed group of renowned Dutch architects at MISSION:house this September. Since 2010, Dutch Architect and Designer Edwin Oostmeijer has organized and led the Amsterdam-based Summit Tour, which highlights key works of Northern California Modern Architecture.
For The Summit’s fourth annual study visit to view examples of “NorCalMod,” MISSION:house hosted the distinguished guests and demonstrated a contemporary vision of this classic, architectural theme. The celebrated, signature blending of architecture with local and regional geographic influences that characterizes the Modern Architecture of Northern California was a highlight for the visiting Dutch architects, designers and developers, who traveled to experience and learn about local variations of this motif. The tour features project-based housing interspersed with private homes. “The Summit,” named for an intriguing apartment building in the Russian Hill neighborhood, refers to “the peak” of architecture both metaphorically and literally.
PARK(ing) Day 2013: Park-a-licious
For PARK(ing) Day 2013, INTERSTICE created a glowing, inhabitable bubble, the DRAGON:bubble.
DRAGON:bubble is a multi-chamber, inflatable structure made from 4 mil. translucent polyethylene and fluorescent green duct tape. The entire pop-up environment weighs less than a person and folds flat to be stored and transported to another location.
Once inflated, three distinct bubble “rooms” intersect to produce a series of interconnected spaces. The “skin” was created by projecting the structural algorithm of a dragonfly’s wing onto the intersecting spheroids. The surface was then flattened through digital manipulation into hundreds of 2-dimensional polyhedron shapes, which were then taped together to form the complex geometry of the final 3-dimensional form.
Inside, the blue grass of the DRAGON:bubble floor creates an other-worldly experience, complete with dynamic balloons that take flight and circulate throughout the spaces. One can relax on soft, inflated spherical furnishings of various sizes to fit the user’s body.