Home design:
Festival and tour examine the shifting nature of home in San Francisco
The latest innovations can be seen on the AIASF’s San Francisco Living: Home Tours, the highlight of September’s Architecture and the City Festival.
Great design ideas often come from overcoming challenges like finding innovative solutions for traditional stacked housing, sloping hillsides and residential solitude on a bustling, mixed-use city block. These are the ideas celebrated at the San Francisco chapter of the American Institute of Architects’ annual Architecture and the City Festival. This year’s theme, Home: My San Francisco, showcases how architects and designers parlay their interpretation of home within the city’s urban fabric. The capstone of this monthlong festival is San Francisco Living: Home Tours, taking place Sept. 20-21.
With 10 residences split between two days, there’s an opportunity to explore a variety of trends in home design today, including accommodating busy family lifestyles, spa bathrooms as retreats and building spaces for collections, according to AIASF spokeswoman Helen Wong. “One of the defining features of our tour is a focus on inspiring work of architects and the opportunity to explore design solutions that address the current needs and desires of our daily lives,” says Wong.
Cole Valley’s FittyWun House was designed for a young family with three active boys and, according to architect Jonathan Feldman, they placed the big family room where everyone hangs out adjacent to the deck and yard. The fun and games can flow in and out while still being connected with the house’s kitchen, which serves as the central hub. “We opened up the core of the building vertically
so that activities on different levels are in site of each other. The family always knows what is going on and what everyone else is up to,” says Feldman.
The majority of the homes on the tour reflect a modern and minimalist aesthetic, yet remain unique due to each resident’s passions.
For owners of the Buena Vista property, the opportunity to design a home around their art collection was a dream for both as they amassed an assortment of art over the span of their 16-year relationship.
“The house is void of color because the architecture and art are the color,” says George Bradley, principal architect on the project and co-owner of the home that he shares with husband Eddie Baba, a lawyer and board member for San Francisco’s Creativity Explored.
The 4,000-square-foot home fits well within the gently sloping hills of Corona Heights. Despite three levels, floor-to-ceiling windows and a rooftop deck that maximize the views of the city below, the home remains in scale with the neighborhood and exudes warmth from the reclaimed redwood-clad exterior, front door and interior/exterior wall that runs the vertical length of the structure.
With expansive, yet quirky, wall configurations, Bradley and Baba were able to mentally place each piece of art even before the walls were formed. Factors like sun exposure, flow and traffic and humidity were taken into account when determining where each piece would go. Even nooks like the one adjacent to the Heath tile-clad fireplace in the living room were built specifically for the first piece of art they purchased together at Creativity Explored: A yarn tapestry with subdued blues and greens that pick up the colors of the vistas outside.
“We have high and low art mixed together intentionally. Once you know and enjoy the art, you can’t tell the difference,” says Bradley.
The guest bedrooms, study and reading area downstairs house Baba’s collection of Legos and “Star Wars” memorabilia, all on display using specially designed shelving. Even the kitchen has shelving and a neutral color palette, specifically for Baba’s colorful collection of vintage Dansk cookware.