Mission House Published in West Coast Modern
We’re pleased to announce that the Mission house has been published in West Coast Modern – a new architectural monograph by Zahid Sardar featuring “Breathtaking home designs that fit perfectly into the unique landscape of the West.” The book features work by offices such as Aiden Darling, Tom Kundig, Steven Ehrlich, and other notable names from California and the rest of the West Coast. San Francisco Live/Work – aka the Mission House – is on page 124 – the book is available for purchase on Amazon.
587 Shotwell Office Photography
We’re excited to share new finish photography taken of our our office renovations at 587 Shotwell, begun back in 2009. Since moving in, we’ve improved the former warehouse space, most notably with the addition of the “Cube,” our conference room built with a rigid wood frame clad with a glass skin made of panels sourced from local salvage yards. The full set of photographs and full description can be found on our website.
Photography credits go to Cesar Rubio (http://www.cesarrubio.com/).
Recap – Home Tours Weekend/GREENskin in arcCA
Photo: Mathew Millman
The Home Tours weekend and inaugural gallery installation went extremely well, and concluded a very busy month of September in the office. Now that we’ve had a bit a chance to catch our breath, we wanted to express our appreciation to everyone who participated in the Home Tours, and we were equally proud to share the Mission:House with all of you that took the time to drop by and see our work up close.
For those of you who weren’t able to make it to the Home Tours, you can read up on what some of our visitors had to say (Inhabitat / Architect’s Newspaper). Special thanks to Mike Chino (Inhabitat) and Lydia Lee (Architect’s Newspaper) for sharing their impressions!
On the topic of the Mission:House, we’re happy to share that our recently awarded GREENskin Facade System was featured in the 10.3 issue of arcCA, in its AIACC Design Awards Section. Flip to page 40 to see the project and other winning projects in the Small Design Category.
Mission:House Featured in 2010 San Francisco Home Tours + Urban Interstice Gallery Opening
photo: Cesar Rubio
The San Francisco Architecture and the City Festival commences next week and we’re pleased to invite participants to both take a tour of our Mission:House, as well as view our newly completed Urban Interstice Gallery’s inaugural exhibit.
As a part of the San Francisco Living: Home Tours weekend event, guests will be able to tour some of the city’s most architecturally distinctive residences. The Mission:House will be one of the homes included on the tour, open for viewing on Saturday, September 12th.
The Mission:House is an 1100 sqft. “hybridizing” residence and living laboratory for a family of four (architect, landscape architect, and two daughters), who have made it their personal trial grounds for materials, light and unorthodox construction techniques. Experiments range from floors of expansive steel plates, walls of thermal plastics, and magnetic closet/display walls, to integrated passive energy strategies, ingenious waste-stream material reclamation, and high-tech thermal & solar power collection.
On the street a façade of shingled glass, built entirely of reclaimed material, creates an unusual “Greenskin” of refracted light through superimposed frames. Inside a 50-foot long wall of sliding doors reconfigure the ground floor studio while upstairs an operable skylight stretches across the house to let in the sky (and rain). A 30-foot rear façade of sliding corrugated thermal plastic, looks into the timber bamboo canopy. Translucent & luminous materials imbue the small home with a sense of volume and openness. Green magnetic walls slide and swing to absorb program, while the roof integrates an organic vegetable garden, hot tub, and a 4 kilowatt photo-voltaic array into a terraced topography of modular wood tiles.
If you are interested in learning more about the Mission:House, you can find more images and descriptions on our website. You can obtain more information regarding the Home Tours and reserve your spot by visiting www.aiasf.org/hometours.
Downstairs from the living spaces of the Mission:House will be the inaugural exhibit of our newly completed Urban Interstice Gallery, Public Networks of Urban Access. Relating to the Festival’s theme of “Investigating Urban Metabolisms,” the exhibit showcases the emerging network of pedestrian access and pedestrian-centered environments that have been designed, built and improved upon in the last two decades in San Francisco.
The emerging pedestrian network is one that highlights the changing priorities of urban dwellers. Priorities that are increasingly calling for the design of artifacts and architectural elements that bring us in contact with lost ecological systems, habitats and wilderness, and shelter us from the effects of the automobile. Through Design we are reclaiming sidewalks, streets and parking areas. Designers are finding creative ways to gain universal access to more wild landscapes, sensitive areas and the surrounding bay. The exploration of these projects will be presented in photographs, drawings and narrative falling into the following topical areas: Topographic Access, Pedestrian Streets, Water Access, Access to Sensitive Habitats.
We will be curating this exhibit which will showcase a number of public space projects in San Francisco. The opening reception will be Tuesday, September 14th at 5:00 pm, with the exhibit open through September 25th.
The Urban Interstice Gallery is located at 3443 26th Street, between Bartlett and Mission Streets (Google Map Link). Hours are from 2-6 pm Thursday – Saturday.
IA Office — Our "New" Space
We thought we’d share our “new” office with everyone – “new” being a relative term as we’ve been working in our renovated warehouse space at 587 Shotwell Street for about a year now. Aside from a new kitchen, new lighting fixtures, and some custom furniture, our biggest improvement to the space has been the conference room, a.k.a. “The Cube.” The Cube’s clouded glass shell is 100% reclaimed material, sourced from local reclamation yards. The glass is mounted to a simple exposed wood structure, held in place by custom mounting brackets we fabricated in our shop.
Before the Renovation
Featured Project: Noel Barnhurst Studios
photo credit: Cesar Rubio
We’re happy to share some finished photography of our most recently completed project: the studios of Noel Barnhurst. We were asked to renovate a 1930’s era concrete warehouse located in San Francisco’s SOMA district to accommodate the client’s food photography studio as well as other associated program including test + preparation kitchens, as well as office + conference spaces. We appreciated the raw material character of the existing building and worked to preserve these elements while making sure new construction complemented the building’s existing material palette. Hand in hand with this strategy, we avoided creating hard partitions and opted instead for a series of heavy velour curtains to divide space — ensuring the spatial organization remained open-ended and keeping the physical presence of the building in focus.
You can see more images of the project on our website.
photo credit: Cesar Rubio
photo credit: Cesar Rubio
photo credit: Cesar Rubio
BURGER RESIDENCE FEATURED IN CALIFORNIA HOME AND DESIGN
The Burger Residence kitchen is featured in the July/August 2010 Issue of California Home and Design Magazine. This kitchen, featured on pages 118-119 of the issue, highlights the potential of a small space to create big impact in the connectivity between interior and exterior living spaces.