This photo from the roof of UA Homes (our newly completed renovation and addition of 74 Units of affordable housing) featured a Green Point Rating for including sustainable design features.  The drawings and specifications as well as the completed project were reviewed by a third party to determine compliance with Green Point Rating standards.  Our client, Resources for Community Development proudly displays this certificate in the lobby of the building. 

Pacific Heritage Wood is a specialty shop that re-purposes salvaged wood for new uses.  Their website features our Doc Marten Store on Haight Street in San Francisco where we used their salvaged wood on the floor.  

Except for the cars, the photos above look pretty much the same.  Even though it is located next to one of the most prestigious shopping areas in the country, the Tenderloin hasn't changed much in 60 years.   Now with the sudden explosion of development on the Mid-Market area, this is sure to ripple to the surrounding areas here.  Developers may already be staking out the choice spots now.  

For many, this area is a high crime area and an eyesore.  For others, this is home.   This is not particularly good news for those who are already stretched beyond their means maintaining a toe hold in San Francisco.   

We're proud to have worked with our client Community Housing Partnership, a non-profit developer,  to preserve 60 units of affordable housing at 735 Ellis, the Cambridge Apartments. 

Finally after starts and stops, our Cambridge project in San Francisco's Tenderloin is finally finished!  The Grand Re-Opening is next week.

I'm seeing for myself the rapid transformation of the Chinese urban landscape.  Here is Datong, the ancient capital of the Northern Wei Dynasty from 386 to 494.  In the foreground is the Huayan Monastery where two of the buildings are about a 1,000 years old.  The other buildings within the monastery complex have been reconstructed or even reimagined. 

Behind the monastery you can see a reconstruction of the old City Wall, built to enclose and create an old Chinese City to encourage tourism.  Within this cnclosure older 20th Century buildings are being demolished and residents are moving to new apartments in a new Datong to the west outside the City Walls 

High rises under construction and cranes everywhere are a common sight throughout China.

Bustling with students, dogs, hippies, revolutionaries, the flotsam of Telegraph Avenue in Berkeley is the stuff of legend.  I'm not sure that makes a modest storefront "historical" and  I don't know the story behind the demolition of this  building -- or its probable replacement, but it reminds me of a trend to preserve everything from the past as "sacred".  Perhaps the City has decreed that the front facade must remain to remind people of what was there.  So this tawdry token is left to cloak something else.  What will the result be?  I'll wait to see.  LM

All people hope their work will have a lasting influence and the world will be a better place because of it.  Architects are no different.  Every since the Moorish Citidal known as Alhambra in Granada, Spain was "re-discovered" in the 19th Century, architects, designers, and landscape architects have been flocking to Granada to experience one of the most beautiful built enviroments ever created.  The Court of the Lions (above left) is perhaps the most memorable.  It has certainly influenced the designers of the Spectrum Mall in Irvine, California (above right). 

Part of the impact of the original design is built upon experiencing the sequence and layers of outdoor and indoor spaces one must pass through before reaching this courtyard.  One begins with a 15-30 minutes stroll through a forested hillside and then pass through the gate of a walled citidal and a series of smaller intimate indoor and outdoor spaces before entering the Court of the Lions.  This prefacing experience and the way it prepares the mind is profoundly different in its "re-creation" in Irvine.  I'll take a look at it when I am in Southern California.   LM

The term SRO may be unfamiliar to you.  It's an acronym for Single Room Occupancy.  As older hotels  have a harder time competing with newer hotels, owners have the choice of expensive upgrades or seeking another clientele.  Some begin to rent rooms at low enough rates and become "permanent" residences. 

Non-profit developers buy these older buildings and renovate them so they can house those who could not otherwise afford housing.  The Cambridge Hotel is one of these.  This may not be your dream kitchen, but for someone who has been living on the streets, this is a dream come true.

San Francisco is blessed wonderfully preserved Victorian Homes.  Many were "modernized" by stripping off ornate wood moldings and covering everything in plaster.  Some added red mission tiles and pretended to be Spanish Colonial.  When the charm of old Victorians were "discovered", many home owners started to restore their Victorians to their original glory.

 Restoring Victorians and "re-creating" a Victorian facade is a lot of fun.  When you  strip off the stucco, you will probably see the original wood siding and an outline of the stripped moldings.  Using this as a guide, something pretty close to the original can probably be re-created.

Others elect to do a "partial" restoration as in the photo above where the missing wood stair railing was replaced with a now "modern" steel and glass system.  When done well, I usually like the contrast of old and new.  Somehow, this solution makes me think of the renovations of an earlier era.  Your thoughts?