Noe Looking Glass seamlessly opens and closes with massive floor to ceiling doors and walk-out terraces at every level as well as a level yard connected directly to the family room. The outdoors is invited in by extending materials such as the beautiful cedar siding and sophisticated patterned tile through from outside to inside, blurring the boundary between the two.  Light suffuses the home at every turn, made possible because the building is fully-detached.

A new ground-up two story home over a basement in the Willow Glen neighborhood of San Jose, designed to fit among the beautiful mature redwood trees on the site.  This home is for a young family with three growing and energic sons.  We focused on durable yet elegant materials including a stained concrete floor, cement fiber siding at the steel and wood slab staircase and exposed douglass fir beams and columns.  The indoor/outdoor flow of the home is exemplified by materials transitioning from in to out and large sliding doors that open the home up the pool and expansive park-like yard.

This home is an astounding transformation of one of the classic Marina-style building found throughout the north side of the city.  We sought to create a new interpretation of the simple two story facade with fine white stucco, anodized metal windows and panels and a warm rich oak paneled entry door.  Inside, the low tunnel entrance was opened up to a soaring light-filled double-height space.  The material palette and detailing are refined and essential: brushed grey oak cabinets, simple steel railings, pinstripe detailing at the doors and baseboards.  Everything is carefully considered and unified allowing an expansive sense of space and light flow throughout. A new third floor is set back from the street so as to not disrupt the scale the neighborhood.  A fourth floor penthouse captures views of Golden Gate Bridge.

This remodel and addition completely reimagines a 1940s row house at the top of a steep block above Eureka Valley for a young couple from China.  Clean lines and crisp blacks and whites gradually open up more and more as you rise through this home with its reverse floorplan.  A new folded jewel-like penthouse caps the project, sheltering an airy loft-like living level, with space and light flowing up and over the fourth-floor family room to the third-floor kitchen, living and dining below.  Panoramic views of the skyline and twin peaks are captures from every angle, turning the home into a lens.  Refined details such as a folded steel plate stair, minimal white cabinets and silky honed marble slabs manifest the overall design concepts at every scale, creating a peaceful sense of place. 

Located in a quiet mature neighborhood in the Silicon Valley town of San Mateo, this ground up home imagines a new life for this family, leaving behind their low boxy former house on the site for this new one.  The new home stiches together the basement and two levels with dramatic double height volumes and an interconnecting staircase.  Indoor outdoor living flows from the Living and Dining Rooms out to the trellis covered deck and yard. Warm materials like walnut cabinets and doors, white oak floors, brass accents and quartzite counters bring a strong sense of place to this modern home.  The exterior palette of stucco and stained cedar siding nestles into the suburban context; new yet neighborly.  Playful rooflines break up the volume and scale of the home to sit well among the other homes on the block.

In our suburban homes, we have been experimenting with the concepts of indoor/outdoor living and how to create a socially cohesive and flowing home.  How does that apart to a large vertical urban home?  A unifying white concrete staircase acts as the spine, connecting all levels, wrapped in glass.  A tall thin lightwell blurs the line between inside and outside, bathing the stair in light.  The building steps back and in as it rises, with floor-to-ceiling sliding doors systems giving way to generous terraces that act as outdoor rooms. A warm and relaxed palette brings a feeling of easy luxury to the whole home with silver travertine, wide oak floors, creamy leather wall panels and oiled oak cabinets.

Selected for the AIA Architecture and the City Home Tour, 2022. 

This project is a multifamily infill on a prominent urban site at the intersection of 24th St and Dolores St.  The project replaces a small single family home with a new 3-unit building, achieving the maximum density permitted and bringing much needed housing to this desirable area of San Francisco.  The building consists of a ground floor garden unit with 3 bedrooms, optimized for an urban family, a single-level middle unit with 2 bedrooms and a walk-out terrace with views of the skyline and a two-story 4-bedroom upper unit with a reverse floorplan, positioning the kitchen/living/dining under the dramatic vaulted gable roofline.
As a corner site, this building was designed to be seen in the round and to be appreciated at the slow pace of the pedestrian as well as the faster speed of the car.  Its form riffs off the gabled Edwardian across the street in order to form twin columns at the gateway between Noe Valley and the Mission.  An echo through time.  The materials include heat-treated silver-grey wood siding, a standing seam metal roof, a mid level in black siding, recessed to allow the upper volume to float, and a basalt stone base.  The light airy interiors are customized to the needs of each unit.  This is truly boutique multifamily. 

This home sits at a pivot point between the Mission and Noe Valley where a rise in the topography allows for incredible views while maintaining a walking urban lifestyle.  This remodeling project pivots the home from an older way of living with isolated rooms to one of open interconnectedness.  The roof is full developed as a ‘yard’, with space for cooking, dining, lounging and soaking all while enjoying the view.  It is generously planted includes an outdoor fireplace.  The interior features refined detailing with hidden-hinge doors, a floating curved stair and many built-ins.  The interior is generally white to capture the play of light and shadow but luxurious materials selectively warm the palette and create a domestic feel, reinforced by elements such as the breakfast nook and walk-in-pantry.

We retained and refurbished the front façade of this historically rated home from the early days of the Mission district while remaking the interior and back to reflect the new spirit of the Mission: young, playful, eclectic and open.  This is a family home for a young family very much engaged with their city.  Geometry and pattern take the place of historic ornament.  Open spaces flow together and out to the back yard.  A steel and glass staircase rises through the home, pulling light down from above.