La Maison (San Francisco)

Project Details

Project Description

FROM THE ARCHITECTS:

New Construction of a 28 Condominium Unit building in SOMA district of San Francisco. The design strategy challenges the housing landscape of attached residential buildings with zero lot lines unique to San Francisco’s urban fabric by reconstructing series of relationships among the 28 homes. From our background in interior architecture, we initiated our design process by examining the relationships between these 28 urban homes rather than a building design for a singular building.

We shifted the homes in plan to create detachments from one another. We shifted the homes in section that lead to disconnections from one another. The shifting of these homes in both axis gave ways for window placements and balcony decks. Now we have a strategy.

Measured at 90’W x 100’L, the width of this urban infill lot was not only the most challenging issue of the project but also the primary catalyst for the building’s form. Dwelling units in a multi-family building is often organized in a bedroom-living-bedroom configuration along the exterior front of the building, mainly to fulfill the light and ventilation requirements that these two programs are required to have. Once implemented, the lot’s 90’W dimension can only fit 2 units at most, making this building design inefficient and way under the performa of the development. We then took advantage of the voids the shifting process generates to bring light and ventilation within. This feature allows the footprint of the unit to compress when the bedrooms stagger around the lightwells, creating room to fit three equal size units across the width of the lot.

Combined with the formal shifts, the required 12% of affordable units are fairly distributed through out the building with the same assurances of quality, natural light, and detachment like any adjacent market rate units. The recognizable bay window feature on the facade are limited to 9ft. wide in a rectangular form as enforced in the San Francisco Planning Code, a historic code requirement that negates its functionality to the living spaces beyond. Already working within the narrowed living spaces inherited from the restricted lot width, the functionality of the projection was therefore argued against from the interior of the living space. Widening the projections to 12ft 6in allowed the living space to seamlessly align with the projection, convincingly added function to the form of the bay window by increasing another 30% area to the living space.

The programs expands and contracts following the shifted form of the building. The two primary exterior materials enhance the language of the shifts - smooth plaster in white, cement cladding panel in matte black - like a series of urban homes in homogenous composition. Given the rooted history of live/work lofts in the SOMA district, the facade articulation continues this recognizable characteristic by the recalibration of the building form and exterior materials in the double story scale.

Efficiency in the building design, construction methods and budget engineering also took part in our design process. The stacked floor plans limited the kitchen types down to four configuration through out 28 units, the coordination and fabrication of the kitchens were easily manageable. All vertical infrastructural components continue vertically with zero interruptions, allowing the construction sequence to replicate through out each floor. The various repetitive elements through out the building limits the framing cost and eliminated variables that a non-repeated floor plan building typically creates. Together, the construction was completed in 14 months.

The interior is modern with clean lines. The bedrooms are strategically and carefully tucked away from the living spaces. There is not a single wall or a bump-out from any misalignment of vertical shafts. Each kitchen is extensive with various storage components, the 14 totally linear feet allows the storage capacity to increase by 18% compare to other condominium kitchen kitchen models offered in the market today. The bathrooms are spacious, finished in custom cut natural stone, and fully integrated lighting and storage compartments.