Delivered on an extremely modest budget, the new Caliber Schools ChangeMakers Academy exploits color and subtle design strategies to transform an otherwise unconventional but banal tilt-up concrete structure, while leveraging its creative potential as a community-building agent.
Serving more than 1,000 students on two campuses, Caliber Public Schools is a charter organization whose mission is to shift the experience, expectation and outcomes for students in historically underserved communities and provide them with a rigorous K-12 education so that they can enter a four-year college without remediation. The client asked TEF to develop a new, ground up TK-8 school to support anticipated growth exceeding the capacity of its existing school in Richmond, California.
Traditional K-12 education buildings have created an entourage of partitioned structures promoting a single lecturer instruction style, and resulting in mostly isolated classrooms. Current teaching pedagogy has changed the architectural dynamic to reinforce information distribution, team collaboration, and ‘learn by doing.’ Teachers have assumed a role of ‘advisor’ or ‘guide’ to facilitate students’ efforts to research information and create their own knowledge base. A new classroom model should respond by facilitating creative, critical-thinking and communication skills enhanced by a group dynamic. Therefore, we believe the built environment must respond directly to the need for diversity and the collaborative spirit of education through design for flexibility, mobility, and dynamic learning.
Architects Annie Barrett (of aanda) and Hye-Young Chung (of HYCArch) have completely transformed an existing Spanish-style house in Los Angeles for a couple anticipating semi-retirement, and the programmatic shifts that a new phase of life brings. Centered Home marks a long, deeply collaborative process between the architects, who run individual firms on opposite coasts, and the homeowners, who are passionate lovers of design and art with impeccable, exacting attention to detail. The home facilitates the owners’ aspiration to approach their future “expansively, intentionally, and with curiosity,” says design architect Annie Barrett.
Located at Mariner’s Mile in Newport Beach, 3101 West Coast Highway is a renovation and adaptive reuse of a 4-story Cape Cod-style building from the 1980s into a modern articulation of the marine coastal aesthetic.
Situated on a concrete podium 6’ above West Coast Highway, this project creates a modern aesthetic by removing existing embellishments to enhance the clean and timeless geometry of the gabled roofs, all while staying within compliance with the Coastal Commission’s strict reframing constraints. The existing dormers were demolished to create inset terraces providing tenants with fresh air, natural light, and unobstructed bayside views. Removing floor slabs enable double-height spaces while opening-up bayside gable walls with floor-to-ceiling curtain walls create transparency from the street to the bayside. Tenant spaces were also demised in a north/south direction to provide all tenants with bayside views throughout the building.
Encompassing the renovation of a 18,600-square-foot midcentury natatorium designed by William Merchant and the addition of a new 3,400-square-foot clubhouse and connecting entry lobby, this project responds to the wide range of recreational and educational needs in the Mission district, while strengthening its role as a rich cultural hub for community-building and interventional youth services.
Tags: California, San Francisco Comments Off on Garfield Center, a community pool complex in San Francisco, California by TEF Design in joint venture with Paulett Taggart Architects
The newly completed electrical switchgear building is the first Net Zero Energy (NZE) targeted electrical substation building in the United States. Tucked midblock on Eddy Street between Larkin and Hyde, the steel frame concrete structure is a modern addition to the existing historic 1962 substation building designed by PG&E to supply power to the northeastern part of the city.
Foster + Partners has been appointed by SHVO, the luxury real estate development and investment firm, to revitalise the iconic TransamericaPyramidCenter in San Francisco. The biggest renovation in the building’s 50-year history, this redevelopment seeks to give a new lease of life to one of the city’s most recognizable landmarks and the second tallest building in the city. The project will also expand and upgrade the adjacent Three Transamerica (545 Sansome) to a contemporary high-design office building.
Foster + Partners was selected for its prolific expertise in melding historic architecture with contemporary design, following an invited competition including several other celebrated international architectural firms.
Set in the Mayacamas Mountains between Sonoma and Napa, the site for this weekend home is just 10 minutes from downtown Calistoga, but it seems much further removed. The owners envisioned a retreat where they could build lasting memories with their children, entertain friends and enjoy the wine country’s slower pace. Our intent for the project was to capitalize upon the unique nature of the site and views, while respecting the character of the land. Within this sensitive terrain, sustainability and fire resistance were key drivers for the design.
Fulldraw Vineyard is located within the Templeton Gap AVA, the heart of California’s Central Coast wine country. Set on 100 acres of established vineyards, the land is characterized by its rich limestone soils and cool maritime climate the perfect setting for growing Rhone-style varietals. Tucked into the rolling terrain, the winery is accessed via a long, looping drive that takes visitors through the vineyards before arriving at their destination. The proprietors, Connor and Rebecca McMahon, tasked Clayton Korte with designing a winery that represents their personality and passion for winemaking. The solution is a winery that is familiar yet exclusive, comfortable yet sophisticated seemingly disparate ideas that come together through a visitor experience that is as curated as it is intimate.
Named for its butterfly-inspired angular canopies that adorn the project’s exterior, Folded Wings is a speculative office campus designed by Form4 Architecture in the technology epicenter of Palo Alto, CA. The first consequential design decision was to angle the typical office bar at mid-point of Building 1’s footprint. This angle helps outline a welcoming, pedestrian-friendly urban plaza between the complex’s two structures. The design’s lyrical intent is emphasized by a butterfly-form canopy that signals access to two levels of below-grade parking. Folded Wings’ overall appearance yields a form of humane modernism at the scale of the pedestrian. The design is counter to the typical notion of the Silicon Valley fortress campus where no one is allowed behind the gates. This site is open to the public as well as to the rest of the business park. Adjacent to walking and bike trails, the courtyard and park invite the local community to share the beauty.
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