A Secret Garden

This once commercial unit in the heart of the Mission District of San Francisco was converted into a uniquely grounded single-family home. Historically, this century old 2-story wood frame building built in the 1890’s was part of a dispersed 26th Street merchant corridor, which over time has gradually migrated to nearby Mission and Valencia Streets, as housing pressures in the city have steadily increased.  The shop front has been updated to a compressed front yard, while the rear “yard” is transformed into a completive garden – enclosed as is a typical condition in the dense Mission District, transformed here into a quiet, private and nature-animated oasis which the new home relies on for air, light, color and texture.

Space dissolves into a bamboo grove

This new ground floor unit connects the busy street front through an ordered façade of 100% reclaimed glass arranged like scales in a steel matrix, to the quite rear grove of timber bamboo, ferns and Japanese maple.  The architectural space moves through an open glass wall into dappled shade and the sound of wind rustles the 40ft lush canopy. A customized fence unifies the edges with a color palette derived from the life cycle of the timber bamboo trunks.

 

 

A river of cork runs through it

The interior plan is inverted – to provide bedroom and a private office off the garden while the core of the home is an open plan of living and dining around an open kitchen.  The living space is organized by a continuous long and high surface of cork meant to create a soft acoustic environment and flexible display throughout the home, while also concealing the volumes for mechanical, storage and bathrooms.  The floor to ceiling expanses of cork surface eventually envelope an entire sensual enclosure at the master bedroom, where the cork surround one on walls, doors and ceilings.

 

 

Space and Light in balance with Nature

The interior space maximizes the limited 1,200 sf. floor plan by way of integrating storage within the sculpted cabinets and built-in seating volumes.  The storage perforates and frames the unencumbered space, along with the use of glass walls and sliding partitions to allow for functionally distinct areas to work in concert with one another – providing openness, privacy and separation as needed, and allowing natural light to reach deep into the narrow home.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

• Landscape
• Residential