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Architects: Aidlin Darling Design
- Area: 4250 ft²
- Year: 2014
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Photographs:Matthew Millman
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Design Consultant: Gemmill Design, Tim Gemmill - Gemmill Design
Text description provided by the architects. Channeling the spirit of this mid-century modern home’s original designer, Joseph Esherick, daylight was a primary objective for this comprehensive contemporary transformation. Situated amongst much larger homes in the Pacific Heights district of San Francisco, this project adapts the original design to its present-day context. Central to the new design is a large multi-story interior garden atrium that is intended to capture outdoor space within the home.
This vastly sky-lit space serves as a spatial hub, pulling daylight deep into the home’s interior. It features a transverse bridge and a sculpted wood wall that filters and carves light as it moves through the space.
The dialogue between earth and sky is reinforced through the home’s material palette of concrete, wood, glass, steel, and diffused light. The home’s once dark interior is completely transformed using restrained materials that reflect, refract, and sculpt light as it is captured. The juxtaposition of heavy and light is carried through to the smallest details. In addition to this atrium space, the house re-establishes its relationship to the landscape by way of its rear façade. A new lower level physically connects the home’s interior to outdoor living space and the landscape. The rear façade and adjacent walls reorient both indoor and outdoor space towards the landscape and city views beyond while editing neighboring structures for mutual privacy.
