Linden Street Apartments in California by Stephen Phillips Architects (SPARCHS)

Article source: Stephen Phillips Architects (SPARCHS) 

Challenging the local San Francisco vernacular with powerful contemporary style, this new apartment building designed by Stephen Phillips Architects (SPARCHS) plays with viewer perception to create dramatic visual and spatial effects.

Image Courtesy © Tim Griffith Photography

• Architects: Stephen Phillips Architects (SPARCHS)
• Project: Linden Street Apartments
• Location: San Francisco, California, USA
• Photography: Tim Griffith Photography
  
• Software used: Rhino, Maya, Autocad, and Adobe illustrator and photoshop
• Project Team: Sam Clovis, Cameron Helland, Richard Porter, Andrew Wright, David Stamatis, Franco Zaragoza, Stephen Becker, Domini Padua, Trevor Larsen
• Client: Hayes Valley Properties
• Contractor: Kevin Webb Construction
• Structural Engineer: Double D Engineering
• Area: 4,200 sq. ft.
• Completed: 2016

Image Courtesy © Tim Griffith Photography

Linden Street, a back alley to Hayes Valley’s boutique San Francisco mixed-use commercial and residential district, incorporates an eclectic group of traditional one- to four-story Victorian and Edwardian houses. The immediate neighborhood, spanning from Octavia Park to cafes on Laguna Street, has been steadily transforming since nearby freeways were removed. Hired to design a speculative infill duplex for a local landowner, Stephen Phillips Architects (SPARCHS) aimed to challenge normative San Francisco housing typologies.

Image Courtesy © Tim Griffith Photography

Image Courtesy © Tim Griffith Photography

Adapting local vernacular with contemporary sensibility, this design maximizes building area on a minimal lot with expansive circulation spaces connecting street life clear through to rear rooftop open spaces. By creatively interpreting local zoning codes (bay window, awning, cornice, and balcony) Stephen Phillips Architects (SPARCHS) generated a unified building facade with unique optic and haptic spatial characteristics.

Image Courtesy © Tim Griffith Photography

Image Courtesy © Tim Griffith Photography

Notably, angular exterior metal surfaces wrap around and through large panels of glazing on the interior and exterior confounding spatial and perceptual boundaries—blurring distinctions between inside and outside as well as horizontal and vertical orientation. Designed to weather from black to soft grey, zinc panels mark the passage of time on both the interior and exterior. As a black mass, the building form is at once powerful, indiscernible, and provocatively complex, revealing itself through the perceived movement of light, shade, and shadow on its varying buildings surfaces.

Image Courtesy © Tim Griffith Photography

Image Courtesy © Tim Griffith Photography

A curved mansard-type roof was designed by the architect to mitigate building height while creating dynamic interior spaces. Strategically locating living spaces along the front and back of the building, open floor plans and double-height vertical circulation spaces were designed to create an open flow between rooms. Custom teak cabinetry, concrete and marble counters, bleached white oak floors, and artisan metal panels and railings—activate, warm, and enliven the interior clear through and open to the exterior urban spaces.

Image Courtesy © Tim Griffith Photography

Image Courtesy © Tim Griffith Photography

Introduction of Designer / Design Agency

Stephen Phillips AIA, PhD is principal architect in the California based firm Stephen Phillips Architects (SPARCHS). Phillips received his degrees in architecture from Yale University, the University of Pennsylvania, and Princeton University. Phillips has been published widely receiving numerous awards, distinctions, and honors in the field of architecture including those from the Getty Research Institute, the Smithsonian American Art Museum, the Graham Foundation, the Bruno Zevi Foundation, the AIA, and the ACSA. He is Professor of Architecture at California Polytechnic State University, San Luis Obispo and Founding Director of the Cal Poly Los Angeles Metropolitan Program in Architecture and Urban Design. Specializing in a wide variety of building design for well over fifteen years from high-end custom homes, developer housing, boutique restaurants and wineries, to educational and cultural buildings—Phillips’s office maintains the highest standards of innovative contemporary practice in design and construction technique to ensure lasting quality and value for a wide variety of clientele.

Image Courtesy © Tim Griffith Photography

Image Courtesy © Tim Griffith Photography

Image Courtesy © Tim Griffith Photography

Image Courtesy © Tim Griffith Photography

Image Courtesy © Tim Griffith Photography

Image Courtesy © Tim Griffith Photography

Image Courtesy © Tim Griffith Photography

Image Courtesy © Stephen Phillips Architects (SPARCHS)

Image Courtesy © Stephen Phillips Architects (SPARCHS)

Image Courtesy © Stephen Phillips Architects (SPARCHS)

Image Courtesy © Stephen Phillips Architects (SPARCHS)

Image Courtesy © Stephen Phillips Architects (SPARCHS)

Image Courtesy © Stephen Phillips Architects (SPARCHS)

Tags: California, USA

Categories: Adobe, Apartments, Autocad, Illustrator, Maya, Photoshop, Rhino

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