Location, Location, Location

When I first moved to San Francisco, one of the first things I noticed right off the bat was the general fixation(by most residents) to the area in which they lived.  At first I didn't understand what the big deal was, but as time went on, I began to realize just how much the neighborhoods differed, and even more, I noticed just how similar the residents within these areas were.  San Francisco itself is a relatively small city, roughly 7x7 miles and is divided into many neighborhoods, each with a distinct characteristic.  Although I hope to never become a neighborhood snob, the different personalities associated with the neighborhoods definitely keep things interesting.  And I can say, I've been here for almost a year, and I've never once been bored.  So, for my latest studio project, I drew inspiration from SOMA, an area in San Francisco and the location of my project.  The project itself is adaptive reuse, as we are converting a commercial building to residential live/work lofts.  Later on I'll get more into the technical stuff, but for now, here are some pretties that I'm drawing some of my inspiration from.

SOMA is truly an amazing area, bursting with entertainment, education, art, and night life.  The area has literally been destroyed on multiple occasions because of natural disasters.  Each time, the area has been rebuilt to an arguably better state.  As a result, SOMA has become an eclectic, culturally rich area with representatives from every walk of life.

My original inspiration for the layout of my residences was based on the organizational techniques of traditional Japanese Tatami mats.  This allowed me to have a formally more normal project without creating just cookie cutter residences.  I focused mainly on two of the organizational techniques associated with these mats when I was allocating space.  The first one being that not matter how many components are combined in a Tatami organization, they are always generated by either a square or a rectangle, and they always produce a square or a rectangle when combined.  The other technique I used was  the constraint of the corners.  In Tatami mats, four corners never intersect.  As for the rest of the images, just enjoy!

Billboard in SOMA

Local hot spot

Welcome home.

DESIGN. INSPIRE. REPEAT.