587 Shotwell Office Photography
We’re excited to share new finish photography taken of our our office renovations at 587 Shotwell, begun back in 2009. Since moving in, we’ve improved the former warehouse space, most notably with the addition of the “Cube,” our conference room built with a rigid wood frame clad with a glass skin made of panels sourced from local salvage yards. The full set of photographs and full description can be found on our website.
Photography credits go to Cesar Rubio (http://www.cesarrubio.com/).
Park(ing) Day 2011: paARRRRrk-let!
Come join Interstice Architects in front of 826 Valencia in the Mission for Park(ing) Day San Francisco 2011!
The volume of just one parking space is 800 cubic feet – which is equivalent to the minimum soil required for an urban tree to thrive. Using recycled wood palettes, we are installing a temporary story space/nursery, and in deference to the corsair spirit of our friends at 826 Valencia, our paarrrrk-let prototype will proclaim our proclivity for parking-space piracy in proper privateer practice. The parklet re-uses a waste stream material to create a multi-tiered space for people to lounge ‘on deck’ in the shade of an urban tree. The space defined by the outer edge of the pallets represents the soil the tree needs to develop a healthy and stable root system.
Our parklet illustrates not only how a parking spot can be transformed into an urban nursery, but how a temporary nursery space for a tree can also become a community social space. Tapping into our interest discussed in former posts regarding our research into Public Green Networks, we envision a system of both permanent and temporary urban nursery spaces that add a new dimension of verdant social space to the evolving ‘green’ urban fabric of the city. More on this idea in posts to come.
So please, make sure to stop by our paarrrrk-let and check out our park(ing) day page on the Parking Day DIY Network, where you can find mapped locations for parking day installations across the city, and take a look at all the different people and organizations participating in Park(in) Day this year! We would like to extend a special thanks to Rebar for their excellent organization of the worldwide event, and for starting this great tradition 6 years ago!
SF Street Food Festival 2011
SF Street Food Festival 2011, a gallery on Flickr.
Recently, IA was pleased to get involved and help La Cocina with their 3rd Annual San Francisco Street Food Festival — an event that showcases some of San Francisco’s best food from restaurants from across the Bay Area. Held in the lively Mission neighborhood, the festival features stalls from over 60 local restaurants and chefs, live music, drinks, and local vendors. The IA office helped La Cocina with the planning, organization, and assembly of temporary dining furniture made from easily sourced waste-stream materials, using items such as milk crates, plywood, and recycled wood palettes to construct tables and seating pods. Check out our Flikr Gallery, linked above, for photos of the festival and some of the furniture in action, and make sure to visit La Cocina’s website for more information on the Festival and their own incubator kitchen programs.
IA Office — Our "New" Space
We thought we’d share our “new” office with everyone – “new” being a relative term as we’ve been working in our renovated warehouse space at 587 Shotwell Street for about a year now. Aside from a new kitchen, new lighting fixtures, and some custom furniture, our biggest improvement to the space has been the conference room, a.k.a. “The Cube.” The Cube’s clouded glass shell is 100% reclaimed material, sourced from local reclamation yards. The glass is mounted to a simple exposed wood structure, held in place by custom mounting brackets we fabricated in our shop.
Before the Renovation
Featured Project: 3443 26th Street Facade
We’re pleased to share some photos of one of our projects completed earlier this year – our facade renovation at 3443 26th Street. Located in the Mission District, this two-story house’s first floor facade was completely redone using reclaimed sealed glazing units, sourced locally from area reclamation yards. The steel framing structure that houses the glass is built to accept a wide range of unit sizes, and the random assortment of units results in a facade with unique qualities of depth and reflection. IA looks at this project as a case study in researching how we might better re-incorporate waste-stream materials into new construction, and the detailing and construction know-how required to ensure the quality performance of the resulting structure.
You can see more photos of the project on our website.
GREENSKIN RECEIVES MERIT AWARD FROM AIACC
IA’s GREENskin Facade has been awarded a Small Project Merit Award by the AIACC for this year’s AIACC Design Awards. The project was one of five recipients to recieve the award, and demonstrated how discarded materials can be beautifully reincorporated into our built environment.