Site: San Francisco Hillside
This hillside lot is in a neighborhood of detached homes overlooking Golden Gate Park's panhandle.

Design Objectives: Update with respect, warmth
From the street, the original house appeared to be looming over an unattractive garage, with a rotting deck, giving the feeling of complete disconnection from the ground. The owners wanted to connect ground, building, and sky again, while also removing some previous remodeling and updating portions of the home that hadn't been touched since 1963.

Solution: Mid-Century framework with Modern materials and colors
To visually join the upper and lower stories from the exterior, we expanded the deck and turned it into a deeper, wider solid upper deck intead of a hollow, smaller walkway. The additional width gives the owners precious usable outdoor space on this relatively steep hillside lot. We also used repetition of materials from the garage to the deck to the overhanging eaves to unify the facade.

On the exterior we added warm, natural cedar to the building to counterbalance the deep paint color, changing the facade from the previous bland gray. On the interior, we used natural wood cabinetry and grass cloth to warm the otherwise white spaces.

The tile, fixtures, and finishes return a simplicity to the house without removing texture. The owners appreciated a somewhat minimal aesthetic, and we all felt that going just far enough toward the minimal would suit this update project.

KA Project Team
John Klopf, AIA, CGBP, Mason St. Peter

Contractor
San Francisco Design and Construction

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