INTERSTICE Architects

Jan 2012

This residential expansion almost doubles the usable area of the existing house by creating an interlocking structure of metal roof and walls that transfigures and re-programs the three story, wood framed house on a forested, Pennsylvania site. The contemporary intervention is clearly distinguished from the existing masonry-clad structure, refreshing it with a new material palate while providing a "Great Room," a complete in-law suite, in-home office and a guest room, all connected by a dramatic vertical stairwell, which brings a cascade of light deep into the house from attic to basement. The original brick house was too small for its growing family and provided no generous open congregation space for the extended family and friends to be together. The owners desired an interconnected environment, that offered informal space for entertainment, cooking, homework and music, while allowing connection and flow between entry, living, kitchen and dining. INTERSTICE solved the problem in a minimal way by removing partitions to renew the layout with a contemporary "Open Plan." This expanded the house into the neighboring forest, as now framed through a perforated "Cabinetry Wall" of Modular Storage. The entry was re-organized to provide a foyer while new fenestration permeates the finished attic space and enlarged floors - allowing the house to be ready for its next evolution in which the landscape and exterior decks planned for Phase Two will complete the composition, permitting the house to blend and merge with its extensive grounds.

Clarks Summit, PA

Jun 2010

The Mission District is the true heart of San Francisco's cultural and ethnic diversity, where higher urban density results in a conspicuous lack of green spaces. New PUC on-site water management regulations, and the compelling lack of park space for children, called for a soft solution - one that leverages the full 6000sf of on-podium courtyard to creat a lush, vibrant focus for the 60-unit community living entirely atop a 40,000sf pharmacy. The project utilizes the entire roof surface of the Mixed-Use Developments podium to create an inner-city elevated "meadow" of native and adapted plants - an oasis amidst the dense urban fabric. Over this invisible storm water "sponge," deching and pathways float and meander through the plantings to allow access to a variety of programs. Paths morph to form a raised stage, ramps, a giant seat, and intimate nooks ranging in scale from public communal spaces to private decks for individual "park-side" units.

San Francisco, CA

Mar 2010

A converted 1940s era warehouse located in San Francisco's Mission District is the new home of Interstice Architects. The original raw space was enhanced, its high wood ceilings and deep wood convex trusses sandblasted to reveal the warm material, while the open plan was re-organized by a simple central volume of glowing salvaged glass. The 10ft by 5 ft sheets of cast glass, sourced locally from an architectural salvage yard clad an internal rigid wood 2X4 frame that supports an arsenal of conference room accessories from projection screens, to display and graphic boards of various sizes. The interior is a soft grass filled people space for ideation and complexity, while the exterior is a tight smooth surface of muted shadows that divides the main volume into four separate quadrants. The delicate aesthetic of the crystalline structure stands in material contrast to the course material palette of the warehouse space. The running bond brick facades were braced with steel, allowing the large windows illuminate the open industrial interior, providing an abundance of natural light to the double-story work spaces while solar gain is controlled through adjustable translucent interior screens. The library wall of the rear volume houses the server room, restroom, kitchen and reference area, while shielding the model and materials workshop from the open work stations. Here central large reference tables provide breakout spaces and team work areas between the peripheral work stations allowing large or smaller teams to work on projects as they need to. Workflow flexibility is even built into the walls, which are equipped with a custom aluminum channel track system permitting large display boards to migrate from ad hoc ideation spaces, to conference room, to individual work stations; quickly put up, and then taken down or stored as required.

San Francisco, CA

Jan 2010

The MISSION:house is a two-story "hybridizing" residence. The street level is a multi-purpose space that serves as an ad hoc creative space for the family (architect, landscape architect, and two daughters), and for more formal commercial uses such as office or gallery space. The main residential space, which includes two bedrooms and an open living area, sits above. Located in the diverse Mission neighborhood of San Francisco, the house is both the home and living laboratory for the couple, who have made it their personal trial grounds for materials, light and unorthodox construction techniques. Experiments range from floors of expansive steel plates, walls of thermal plastics, and magnetic closet/display walls, to integrated passive energy strategies, ingenious waste-stream material reclamation, and high-tech thermal and solar power collection. The ground floor access to both units is through a facade of singled glass built entirely of reclaimed material, creating an unusual "Greenskin" of refracted light filtered through superimposed frames. The lower unit opens up through a sliding plastic facade onto a confined rear yard containing a translucent garden-shed/play-hous and a wood tiled deck nestled between a swath of drought tolerant swaying grasses and a tall bamboo forest. The studio interior is divided by a 50-foot long wall of sliding pin-up/doors which reconfigure to reveal library shelving, storage and service rooms, a conference space, and kitchenette. The open interior upstairs breathes light deep into its core where an operable skylight stretches across the house letting in the sky (and rain), while the rear 30-foot tall corrugated thermal plastic facade, looks into the canopy of the timber bamboo grove. The translucent and luminous materials imbue the small home with a sense of volume and openness. Cabinetry walls of lacquer and stainless steel slide and swing to absorb program, while the reconfigured roof integrates an organic vegetable garden, hot tub, and green roof as well as a 4Kwatt photo-voltaic array into a ship-like topography of modular wood tiles.

San Francisco, CA

Jan 2009

A vintage 1930s concrete warehouse building in the heart of SOMA provides the new quarters for a thriving commercial photography studio. The sandblasted concrete and wood framed structure reveals a raw minimalist interior which elevates the haptic material qualities of the space. New programmatic elements are sheathed in hot rolled steel plate rendering a somber monastic aesthetic in which natural light completes the composition. Floor-to-ceiling black velour curtains separate dynamic space, their soft diffuse volume are in stark contrast to the tectonic mass of the stainless steel which forms the programmatic core of the project. The existing industrial glazing is re-scripted to form a layered space of interior partitions that reflect the buildings original industrial simplicity.

San Francisco, CA