A Spanish Revival home in San Francisco has been given a 21st-century makeover, courtesy of architects Spiegel Aihara Workshop (SAW). Wraparound House, the commission for a family of five, involved updating an existing home, adding space to accommodate group activities and entertaining, and also stabilising and tackling the land below, which was contaminated and in need of remediation. The architects obliged, transforming this San Francisco home into a light filled, generous, six-bedroom abode that bridges past and present, while reclaiming its site.
The architects worked on the design both ‘vertically and horizontally', they say. ‘Rather than simply building upon the new ground, we saw the challenge as redistributing the ground vertically across the site, throughout the building. While many buildings have terraces, or balconies, or things like that, we set out to maintain a complete continuity of a new ground across the entire house, ensuring that every roof was not so much the top of something, but the bottom of something – a new ground,’ says SAW's Dan Spiegel.
San Francisco home with curve appeal
Inside, a central staircase becomes not only a connector between levels, but also a sculptural accent. A second, exterior stair links the different floors via the outdoor terraces. This access and relationship to the outdoors takes place on every level, in different ways; connecting the indoors with the garden, and allowing for long vistas of the bay and the Golden Gate Bridge were a key part of the clients' brief.
Meanwhile, soft, rounded corners, light colours, crisp surfaces and large openings ensure the interior of this San Francisco home feels fresh and open, creating a sense of calm, while highlighting the views. Meanwhile design studio White Space, headed by Heidi Kim, worked on the interior.
The rounded edges play another role too, Spiegel explains: ‘It sort of works as a gradient: the spaces are more public, more outward looking at the top, and more private, more inward looking at the bottom. The rounded edges of the garden path form a scooter/bike track; the rounded corners of the family room gradually guide you out to the terrace; the master bathroom is conceived as a thickened window for the bedroom, balcony-like and perched over the bay. On most days, I’m just as likely to take the exterior stairs as the interior stairs to move between rooms. It doesn’t quite look like it, but it works a bit like a mobius strip in that way.' The house's name – Wraparound – is inspired by this too.
SAW's Megumi Aihara, a landscape architect, spearheaded the ground's remediation, starting from scratch with the garden to compose a design that accommodates new soil for planting and new trees, including two majestic October Glory Red maples placed on site. This way, modern architecture is balanced by rich, leafy nature in this San Francisco home.
INFORMATION
-
Apple and Design Miami celebrate the new guard of creativity with the inaugural Designers of TomorrowApple and Design Miami's Designers of Tomorrow make Paris debut with a cohort of four designers, including Atelier Duyi Han, Jolie Ngo, Marie & Alexandre, and Marco Campardo
-
Step inside Casa Moncler, the brand’s sustainable and highly creative Milanese HQCasa Moncler opens its doors in a masterfully reimagined Milanese industrial site, blending modern minimalism and heritage, courtesy of ACPV Architects Antonio Citterio Patricia Viel
-
Rains Amsterdam is slick and cocooning – a ‘store of the future’Danish lifestyle brand Rains opens its first Amsterdam store, marking its refined approach with a fresh flagship interior designed by Stamuli
-
Explore Tom Kundig’s unusual houses, from studios on wheels to cabins slotted into bouldersThe American architect’s entire residential portfolio is the subject of a comprehensive new book, ‘Tom Kundig: Complete Houses’
-
Ballman Khaplova creates a light-filled artist’s studio in upstate New YorkThis modest artist’s studio provides a creative with an atelier and office in the grounds of an old farmhouse, embedding her practice in the surrounding landscape
-
The most important works of modernist landscape architecture in the USModernist landscapes quite literally grew alongside the modern architecture movement. Field specialist and advocate Charles A. Birnbaum takes us on a tour of some of the finest examples
-
Jeanne Gang’s single malt whisky decanter offers a balance ‘between utility and beauty’The architect’s whisky decanter, 'Artistry in Oak', brings a sculptural dimension to Gordon & MacPhail's single malt
-
An idyllic slice of midcentury design, the 1954 Norton House has gone on the marketNorton House in Pasadena, carefully crafted around its sloping site by Buff, Straub & Hensman, embodies the Californian ideal of the suburban modern house embedded within a private landscape
-
Herzog & de Meuron and Piet Oudolf unveil Calder Gardens in PhiladelphiaThe new cultural landmark presents Alexander Calder’s work in dialogue with nature and architecture, alongside the release of Jacques Herzog’s 'Sketches & Notes'. Ellie Stathaki interviews Herzog about the project.
-
Meet Studio Zewde, the Harlem practice that's creating landscapes 'rooted in cultural narratives, ecology and memory'Ahead of a string of prestigious project openings, we check in with firm founder Sara Zewde
-
The best of California desert architecture, from midcentury gems to mirrored dwellingsWhile architecture has long employed strategies to cool buildings in arid environments, California desert architecture developed its own distinct identity –giving rise, notably, to a wave of iconic midcentury designs
