San Francisco bungalow transformed into spacious architectural home
San Francisco-based architecture studio Spiegel Aihara Workshop (SAW) works its magic to turn a tired bungalow into The Fourth Wall, a contemporary urban family home

Bruce Damonte - Photography
A San Francisco bungalow has been transformed by local architecture practice Spiegel Aihara Workshop (SAW) into a modern family home. The Fourth Wall, as the project has been titled, expands a 1907 home in the city's Bernal Heights neighbourhood. The square footage addition was not the only goal with this project. The architects and clients also wanted to make the connection between the interior living spaces and the garden more ‘intentional', and both aims are achieved in one fell swoop with a brand-new rear extension and façade.
With this move, dark, cramped, inward-looking rooms have been reimagined into bright and spacious interiors orientated towards a green garden. An existing, smaller exterior building was entirely removed and replaced with the extension, spanning the home's full three levels and adding a structured, contemporary, geometric look to the rear façade.
The two lower levels contain mostly living and entertaining spaces for family and guests, while the top floor houses bedrooms, with the master suite looking down to the green garden. From there, the façade appears like a stack of windows, terraces and openings, highlighting the ample light and visual connections the redesigned home now has. A new staircase inside also links up seamlessly all interior levels.
‘Towards the yard, the exterior cladding appears to turn inside out, wrapping the same slatted pattern along the fences and, in turn, framing the backyard as an outdoor room,' the architects write. ‘This fence is often used as a screen for scenic projections. In addition, SAW regraded the backyard for drainage and added raised Corten perimeter planter beds for screening and an edible garden. This all plays out as a big inversion, as the backyard was reoriented to face in, a seat from which to experience the activity playing out across the home.'
From tired San Francisco bungalow to spacious, architectural home; The Fourth Wall is a clever sleight of hand that adds design value to the existing urban fabric. SAW partners and co-founders Dan Spiegel and Megumi Aihara are deft at this kind of feat, as previous projects by the studio, such as the Wraparound House, demonstrate.
INFORMATION
Receive our daily digest of inspiration, escapism and design stories from around the world direct to your inbox.
Ellie Stathaki is the Architecture & Environment Director at Wallpaper*. She trained as an architect at the Aristotle University of Thessaloniki in Greece and studied architectural history at the Bartlett in London. Now an established journalist, she has been a member of the Wallpaper* team since 2006, visiting buildings across the globe and interviewing leading architects such as Tadao Ando and Rem Koolhaas. Ellie has also taken part in judging panels, moderated events, curated shows and contributed in books, such as The Contemporary House (Thames & Hudson, 2018), Glenn Sestig Architecture Diary (2020) and House London (2022).
-
Meet artist Michael McGregor, using hotel stationery as his canvas
Michael McGregor unveils an exclusive postcard set made with notepads from The Luxury Collection properties in Minneapolis, San Francisco and Savannah
-
A nature-inspired Chinese art centre cuts a crisp figure in a Guiyang park
A new Chinese art centre by Atelier Xi in the country's Guizhou Province is designed to bring together nature, art and community
-
William Kentridge's fluid sculptures are a vivid addition to the Yorkshire landscape
William Kentridge has opened the first major exhibition to focus on his sculptures outside of South Africa at Yorkshire Sculpture Park
-
Tour this fire-resilient minimalist weekend retreat in California
A minimalist weekend retreat was designed as a counterpoint to a San Francisco pied-à-terre; Edmonds + Lee Architects’ Amnesia House in Napa Valley is a place for making memories
-
A New Zealand house on a rugged beach exemplifies architect Tom Kundig's approach in rich, yet understated luxury
This coastal home, featured in 'Tom Kundig: Complete Houses', a new book launch in the autumn by Monacelli Press, is a perfect example of its author's approach to understated luxury. We spoke to Tom Kundig, the architect behind it
-
Tour architect Paul Schweikher’s house, a Chicago midcentury masterpiece
Now hidden in the Chicago suburbs, architect Paul Schweikher's former home and studio is an understated midcentury masterpiece; we explore it, revisiting a story from the Wallpaper* archives, first published in April 2009
-
The world of Bart Prince, where architecture is born from the inside out
For the Albuquerque architect Bart Prince, function trumps form, and all building starts from the inside out; we revisit a profile from the Wallpaper* archive, first published in April 2009
-
Is embracing nature the key to a more fire-resilient Los Angeles? These landscape architects think so
For some, an executive order issued by California governor Gavin Newsom does little to address the complexities of living within an urban-wildland interface
-
Hop on this Fire Island Pines tour, marking Pride Month and the start of the summer
A Fire Island Pines tour through the work of architecture studio BOND is hosted by The American Institute of Architects New York in celebration of Pride Month; join the fun
-
A Laurel Canyon house shows off its midcentury architecture bones
We step inside a refreshed modernist Laurel Canyon house, the family home of Annie Ritz and Daniel Rabin of And And And Studio
-
A refreshed Rockefeller Wing reopens with a bang at The Met in New York
The Met's Michael C Rockefeller Wing gets a refresh by Kulapat Yantrasast's WHY Architecture, bringing light, air and impact to the galleries devoted to arts from Africa, Oceania and the Ancient Americas