Straddling the border of Potrero Hill and the Mission District in San Francisco, Rowan at 346 Potrero is a 70-unit mixed-use residential building. The goal of the project is to strike a chord of continuity with the industrial past of Potrero and the Mission and celebrate its urban, transit-oriented future.
Klopf Architecture, Outer Space Landscape Architects, and Flegels Construction updated a classical 1950s original mid-century modern house designed by the late Frank Lloyd Wright apprentice Ellis Jacobs. Klopf Architecture pushed the original design intent to make the house more open and uniform from space to space, while improving energy efficiency, capitalizing more on the already incredible views, improving the flow of spaces, providing an outdoor living area, and ratcheting up the quality level of the home in general.
Pulp Pavilion represents the culmination of five years of experiments with material composites using reclaimed paper. The result was a gathering space` that was a respite from the sun and frenetic energy of the Coachella Valley Music and Arts Festival in the California desert. It was an ideal place to view performances on two stages.
The existing Spanish Style house had been modified adhoc (not to mention illegally) over the years with little attention to the net effect. As with many of the transformations we design, we took the existing conditions and capitalized on the best features of the house. These were the big, open back yard, the opportunity to connect the house to the outdoors, and the architectural interest of the split level. We also took queues from the nearby industrial and warehouse elements, and fused them with an interpretation of the neighborhood’s residential qualities. The hybrid result is simultaneously related to the context, and an architecture of its own.
Architecture and interior design firm, Arcsine, transformed an existing 900-square-foot split level vacant retail space into Modern Coffee, a popular, local, multi-roaster’s second location in downtown Oakland, aiming to seamlessly convert the space into a contemporary coffee shop. Since the space sits on a significant slope, the design team was challenged with finding a way to configure the coffee shop to maximize space and functionality. The result was the introduction of stairs, creating a split level layout that seamlessly integrates the upper and lower areas of the store. The design team was also tasked with finding unique solutions to place floor drains or hang lighting fixtures as the floors and ceilings are made of thick concrete and beams making it difficult to drill through.
This house is set on a traditional Berkeley street, and adjacent to a former rail line (traces of which are still visible from an aerial view.) The architecture borrows from the machine qualities of the railway to echo the former land use, and blends it with the character of the current residential neighborhood. Corrugated metal wraps down the roof and wall facing the former train line, while the front of the house expresses the pitch of the roof that ties it to more traditional house forms. The interior is an open expanse that also recalls a large, open station with a free plan and high vaulted ceilings.
As part of Nike’s overhaul of their flagship store on Union Square, our two-story lobby installation is a dynamic array of over 600 reclaimed bleachers which cantilever out over the escalator leading into the store. The well-worn bleacher board, a material Nike has used in numerous stores to convey familiarity and use, is organized here as a set of vectors that flow through the lobby. Ideally, the anomalies of the material are enough to disrupt the smoothness of the geometry, while the unstable, precarious array disrupts a purely nostalgia reading of the bleachers yielding a wider range of associations.
The 2200 sq. ft. residence is located on a severe hillside site in Malibu overlooking the Pacific Ocean. The project is an extensive remodel of an existing post-and-beam home in need of a structural, programmatic and environmental upgrade. The residence is re-envisioned for the 21st century.
Challenge:
The structural drawings was missing in the file. We made a structure model on the basis of assumption from the architectural drawings provided by the client. Later the client provided us with a hand sketch which was 90% accurate to what we had assumed. The quality of engineers in Hi-Tech are beyond any challenge.
Zendesk, a customer service software provider, was one of the first tech companies to move to San Francisco’s Mid-Market neighborhood to take advantage of the city’s tax incentive program, and the first to sign a community benefits agreement. After experiencing large-scale growth, it was only natural for the company to seek an additional space in the neighborhood they called home. Zendesk’s new office marks its second building on Market Street, creating an urban campus that assists in the revival of the long-neglected Mid-Market neighborhood. The new building not only serves as a headquarters for the growing Zendesk team, but also as opens its doors as a communal hub for local businesses and residents.
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