Tracey Taylor

A concrete lounge created by Concreteworks along with The Wiseman Group and Legoretta Architects.

San Francisco Chronicle, April 4 2010

There’s something about concrete that prompts certain people to wax lyrical about its qualities, extol its aesthetic attributes - even to make life-changing decisions.

Take Mark Rogero, founder of Concreteworks in Oakland. In the late 1980s, he was all set for a career as an architect when he discovered the pleasures of pouring concrete. Armed with $3 worth of cement, he had decided to make a kitchen countertop for his New York studio. His first attempt left much to be desired, but he became obsessed with getting it right, tweaking the mold, finessing the troweling.

“You have this murky material made of dirt and water, and it’s like being a kid who wants to play in the mud. It’s seductive,” he says.

Patrick Miller, who opened Bohemian Stoneworks in Sebastopol nine years ago, underwent a similar epiphany. He was a high-tech whiz in Silicon Valley when he started testing out how to make concrete countertops on weekends. He sought help from his father, a civil engineer who specialized in concrete, and soon it became a passion.

“I would be on an airplane to China for work, and all I could think about was formulating mixes and the next piece I would make,” he says.

Concrete as a home design option has come into its own over the past few years, graduating well beyond countertops to include sinks, tubs, fire surrounds, lounge chairs, planters and paving. Specialists such as Concreteworks, Sonoma Cast Stone and Bohemian Stoneworks have pushed the manufacturing boundaries and experimented with new formulas; they add ingredients to create choices on the color spectrum, try different textural finishes and work to make the material more eco-friendly.

Bay Area architects have embraced the flexibility inherent in concrete and the creativity it affords.

“It’s the most plastic, sculptural material you can use,” says David Stark Wilson of WA Design, who employs it often. A home he designed in Berkeley features a concrete fireplace.

‘Nothing better’

“It’s the ‘craziest’ design,” he says, but patently very beautiful. “If you want to shape a complex form, such as an oddly shaped hearth or a sink, there’s nothing better than concrete. You pour it in wet and it dries hard, and it’s fairly forgiving when you grind it to get the desired finish.”

Wilson also loves using metal in his work, but says it’s much harder to achieve the results he strives for with metal than with concrete.

On a recent weekday at Concreteworks’ manufacturing studio in East Oakland, concrete is being poured into dozens of molds to make ridged wall panels for Prospect, Nancy Oakes’ restaurant scheduled to open this year in San Francisco’s Infinity building, a high-rise of luxury condominiums.

In another area, employees are shaking air bubbles out of molds brimful with terra cotta-colored wet concrete, while nearby a custom-sculptured sink has been set out to dry. Rogero is working with a new highly durable, extra-strong concrete composite called Ductal, which is made by French industry giant Lafarge, to craft banquette seating for Bar Agricole, another new restaurant designed by San Francisco architect Aidlin Darling.

In Berkeley, designer Fu-Tung Cheng crafts Asian-inspired water pieces for gardens and sloping countertops that let water flow naturally with contours to cradle fruit and integrated trivets and cutting boards. Cheng is also bringing his concrete gospel to the people with a series of how-to books on making one’s own concrete elements, such as “Concrete at Home” (Taunton Press, 2005) and “Concrete Countertops Made Simple” (Taunton Press, 2008).

Countertops are what familiarized most homeowners to the possibilities of concrete. But the material is not without its issues: One of the first questions many homeowners ask about concrete is how stain-resistant it is.

Fabricators tend to say that if it is well sealed and handled carefully, concrete will withstand normal use as a kitchen countertop. Sonoma Cast Stone says it has developed a truly stain-free concrete. However, architect Wilson always asks his clients if they are sure they want to use concrete for their countertops.

“Like limestone, it’s porous,” he says. “Staining is still a problem.” Concrete is, of course, very heavy too, although the addition of aggregates and new technologies have created lighter varieties.

This stainless steel Fusion sink with river stone is by Bohemian Stoneworks.

‘It started with tile’

Steve Rosenblatt, founder of Sonoma Cast Stone, says he’s observed an evolution in the choices of materials made by homeowners and designers over the years.

“It started with tile, moved to Corian, marble and most recently granite,” he says. As you might expect from a concrete fan, Patrick Miller at Bohemian Stoneworks has issues with slab stone such as CaesarStone and marble, pointing out that much of it is imported, which gives it a high carbon footprint, and that its defined size restricts its potential. “The design possibilities are limited,” he says. “Concrete is fluid and can be shaped in so many ways.”

It has proved tempting to experiment with colors and textures. Concreteworks is casting concrete onto wood-grain textures, almost like a printmaking technique. Sonoma Cast Stone has developed a metal-plated concrete with a copper, nickel, brass, bronze or steel finish. Bohemian Stoneworks offers 30 colors, from Bone through Sangria.

Many claims are made regarding concrete’s sustainability. What’s undeniable is its durability, which in itself gives it high marks on the green scoreboard.

But the manufacture of cement, concrete’s core ingredient, is responsible for about 5 percent of the world’s carbon dioxide emissions, according to the World Business Council for Sustainable Development. This represents a decrease from previous years, after efforts have been made internationally to make production more environmentally friendly, but it still damages concrete’s eco-credentials somewhat.

And local concrete manufacturers are making concrete more sustainably. Miller says the embodied energy of the concrete at Bohemian Stoneworks is very low.

Only recycled water

“We use sand from a site close to the Russian River and only have two deliveries a year,” he says. “Our aggregates are post-industrial materials such as recycled glass. All the water we use is recycled and the lower temperatures at which we heat our concrete means 62 percent less CO{-2} than average.”

Sonoma Cast Stone has developed a patented type of concrete called EarthCrete, which is made from old concrete sidewalks and foundations, ground down until it is as fine as baby powder. It too incorporates recycled glass, as well as porcelain from tubs and sinks bound for the salvage yard. Concreteworks blends fly ash into some of its concrete mixes, as well as glass and rice husks.

And of course the principal perpetrators when it comes to greenhouse emissions from concrete production are not small boutique home design companies, but rather the industrial behemoths here and in countries such as China that manufacture concrete for the construction market.

As concrete builds more of a following among home designers, the local companies that supply it seem determined to stick to their artisan roots.

“The modeling may be becoming more sophisticated, but there’s still a sense it’s a handmade material,” says Rogero.

San Francisco Chronicle, March 28 2010

Photos by Lianne Milton/Special to the Chronicle; Above: Leslie and Chris Lentz

Sometimes a remodel is about more than a desire to improve your house. For Leslie Lentz, redesigning the heart of her St. Helena home proved to be an act of catharsis, one she didn’t realize was needed until the project was complete, the results were displayed before her, and she realized how revitalized she felt.

Lentz and her husband, Chris Lentz, bought their two-bedroom house a few blocks from downtown St. Helena in 2000 after relocating from Minneapolis. Not long after moving, Leslie’s relationship with the business she had founded two decades before began to disintegrate and it quickly became evident she should make a clean break.

Lentz launched Thymes, a lifestyle company specializing in bath and body products, at her kitchen table in Minneapolis in 1982. Over the years, it expanded into a major corporation from which she felt increasingly alienated. The geographical distance didn’t help, but the couple was hooked on the North Bay.

“I grew up in Santa Rosa, and as soon as we came back, it was a case of ‘when the horse smells the barn’ it wants to stay put,” she says.

Lentz negotiated a buyout from Thymes and turned her attention to her home, which had been designed in the late 1990s by an architect as a home for his parents. The house reminded the couple of the townhome they had built for themselves in Minneapolis, and initially they didn’t see much wrong with it. Then one day Lentz decided that the stained kitchen cabinets probably needed attention and brought in architects Peter Collins and Mark Creedon from M2 Studio, which has offices in St. Helena and Berkeley, to see if they had some good ideas for what might take their place.

Plans expanded

Before long Collins and Lentz were discussing a full-blown revamp of the kitchen-dining area. Together they decided to focus their attention on the heart of the house, the place they spent the most time, as a way of getting the most value out of their budget of $450,000. Their discussions kept returning to a dividing wall that separated the kitchen and dining room. They were on the same page when it came to how obstructive it was.

“Normally when I talk about spatial characteristics I have to use laymen’s terms, but Leslie was already one step ahead,” says Collins. The two agreed that the wall was creating unnecessary pathways and choke points and that it should come down.

In its place, Collins suggested they put in a low-level, partial divider that could be both functional and aesthetically pleasing. This immediately appealed to Lentz, whose zest for collecting had gone to new heights. She was eager for a way to showcase her acquisitions.

“With the stress of leaving the company, I was spending a lot of time on eBay,” she says. Her current passion is for European midcentury pottery, including some distinctive pieces from Germany in a style known as Fat Lava, Rosenthal porcelain, and glass by Kosta Boda, as well as American manufacturer Blenko from the 1950s and 1960s.

A grouping of her pieces is now shown to beautiful effect on a unit that ended up being a collaborative design effort and a work of sculptural art all by itself. Three types of wood - quarter-sawn wenge, ipe and rift-sawn white oak - were used to craft the divider, which comprises a bar area, a pantry and a desk, as well as a display space. The deep orange hues of the Fat Lava ceramics are set off by a backdrop of corrugated glass panels.

Midcentury vibe

For the base of the bar section Collins and Lentz turned to their friend Daniel Hale, a St. Helena artist who created a textured wood cladding with a midcentury vibe. Its style is echoed in a pair of plaster light sconces that he designed for a nearby wall.

The new kitchen cabinets were custom-crafted in a white oak veneer by local woodworker Jeff Menchaca, and the generous-size countertops are cut from polished Eurostone. No handles are visible, Lentz having asked for a streamlined look, and there are separate areas for the couple to cook or prepare coffee. She picked out a vibrant retro-style tile by Ann Sacks for the range backsplash.

Opening up the space also created an opportunity to connect the outdoor courtyard more directly to the interior, especially after a large opening was put in for a sliding pocket door. Until then, the couple had barely used the outdoor space because it was something of a heat trap. After exploring options - including involved discussions with a ship chandler in Sausalito about rigging possibilities - Collins designed an elaborate but elegant trellis that combines wood beams and tension rods. Engineered like an inverted suspension bridge, the trellis provides much-needed shade as well as supports for climbing plants.

Now when the Lentzes throw parties, there are no more congested groupings - everyone mills around the breathable, open-plan interior and courtyard. They both appreciate the new kitchen-dining room’s changing light, its easy functionality and its textures, but it goes further than that.

“This home project was a saving grace,” she says. After channeling her creative energies for so many years into her business, being able to design her home was like opening a new box of crayons. “It helped me move on to another vision.”

San Francisco Chronicle, February 21, 2010

Photographs by Peter DaSilva for The Chronicle.

If you had told Ruth Bailey a few years ago that she would one day be back living in the home in which she grew up, a ranch-style house in Orinda, she would probably have laughed. Bailey, whose family’s roots run deep in this lush part of Contra Costa County, was in a home she loved, also in Orinda, with views that allowed her to watch the fog rolling in over the hills.

The vistas from her childhood home were less expansive, although in their own way just as compelling. For the property’s piece de resistance was without a doubt its garden, cultivated over many years by Bailey’s father, something of a renaissance man, whose passions included Japanese architecture and nurturing prize rhododendrons.

With its beautiful landscaping and abundance of mature trees - all planted since 1963 when the estate was bought by the Bailey family - it is no surprise to hear that the garden is a regular on the garden tour circuit. But when Bailey decided to take over the property from her father, Fred Cummings, after tending it became too much of an effort for him, the house itself left something to be desired. “It was dark with lots of hallways and corridors,” she says. “You were always turning corners.”

Bailey consulted Jon Larson and Carolyn Van Lang from Jarvis Architects in Oakland, with whom she had worked before, and asked them to consider how the house could be modernized while retaining its midcentury modern spirit and Japanese-influenced aesthetic. In December, the home received the Mayor’s Award for Excellence in Architecture.

When he built the home, Cummings had been inspired by no less than Katsura, the Imperial Villa in Kyoto, and his daughter was keen to retain those design touches in the remodel.

No more darkness

Working with contractor Whitney Collins, the architects began work in January of last year by gutting the interior of the house to eradicate all the nooks and crannies. The addition of a few inconspicuous skylights and new sets of sliding, floor-to-ceiling glass doors provided the home with the natural light it badly needed.

The kitchen, which had previously been both small and awkward, was relocated to the front of the house with an adjoining patio and outdoor barbecue area.

A five-bedroom home that had served a family raising four children well, was transformed in 10 months into an airy three-bedroom, four-bathroom home for one of those same children whose own offspring have flown the nest.

The space gained in the reconfiguration has been given over to a sweep of three distinct areas - living room, dining room and family den - which can be kept open-plan when entertaining, or made more intimate using sets of sliding shoji-style doors featuring bands of frosted glass.

The original coffered ceilings have been stained a warm walnut and enhanced with recessed lighting. Horizontal bands of walnut trim complement the ceiling and, with their strong linear forms, contribute to the Japanese feel. Architect Van Lang says the repeating horizontal lines are known to create a soothing effect.

Now that the house has been opened up, the sumptuous garden is visible from every room with discrete, always lovely vistas framed by the large windows and plate-glass doors. Two smoothly planed support posts inside the living area echo those used outside under the home’s roof overhang, and mirror the multitude of trees in the yard.

Bailey recalls that the property was originally a horse pasture - the original barn still stands on the grounds of the home - and the first trees planted by her parents were some Scarlet oaks and a zelkova.

“My grandmother gave my mother a seedling Magnolia that was planted by the garage. My mom’s best friend then gave Mom a seedling Catalpa tree in a coffee can. That was the start of the shade required for my dad’s rhododendrons. And he went wild for another 40 years with shade trees (maples, dogwoods, oaks, pines, magnolias).

“And my siblings and I got seedling redwoods in milk cartons in grammar school on Arbor Day. It’s got to the point now where it’s hard to grow plants requiring a lot of light. My mom’s attitude is ‘no more trees.’ ”

Another whimsical touch, very much in tune with the Japonesque style of the house, is the waterfall and fish pond put in by Cummings, who has since passed away. The pond now bursts with giant koi and outsize goldfish.

A bigger bedroom

Bailey’s bedroom is the one she slept in as a child, although barely recognizable as such. Now a generous-size corner room enveloped by the greenery of a lush lawn and gentle hillside outside, it also boasts a magnificent master bathroom with a tub enclosed in frameless glass that offers views of the walled moss and stone garden outside shaded by the canopy of a tall tree.

“I feel like the house has been recycled while being totally transformed. I love it,” says Bailey, pointing out that the house’s footprint has remained the same, and many of her parents’ Japanese antiques still look completely at home in the remodel.

An element of drama was introduced in the previously unprepossessing entryway by opening up walls and raising the ceiling height. The finishing touch was a new, curved Venetian plaster wall at the apex of which a large skylight creates a well of sunlight which pours down, via a staircase, into the lower level of the home. This is where Bailey has her study.

The front door is the same one that Bailey’s mother, Clare Cummings, commissioned after seeing a House Beautiful article reporting on Japanese influence in American architecture. The piece was headlined “Old Story - Being Told Again,” which seems appropriate given that it could equally be applied to the approach that was taken with this remodel.

San Francisco Chronicle, January 17 2010

Photos: Matthew Millman

English manor or French chateau, marble staircases or chandeliers - it helps to know precisely what you don’t want when looking for a home. But when one of those deal-breakers pops up at every open house, it might be better to start from scratch, as one Peninsula couple decided.

When they began their search two years ago, they coveted something contemporary but not stark - a good-looking home that would be functional. This would not be a home for grand entertaining or formal living but rather a place where the children, ages 11, 8 and 3, could run free and their parents could enjoy a kick-back lifestyle against a backdrop that had more than a modicum of style.

Clutching copies of Dwell magazine, the couple visited architect Cass Calder Smith of CCS Architecture to see if he could help them create what they wanted. Smith splits his time between San Francisco and New York and is known for restaurant designs, including Perbacco and Terzo, as well as residential projects. A visit to the 1-acre site the couple had bought in Los Altos Hills sealed the deal.

“Cass had great suggestions for the lot, which is both an odd shape and steep, in areas,” says the owner.

Smith designed a dwelling in three parts - the main house, the garage and a pool house - separated by breezeways to maximize natural light and create generous open spaces. The effect, on a lot studded with pepper, apricot and citrus trees, is of a contemporary, rural compound. This area of Los Altos Hills was a farming community known for its bountiful apricot orchards.

The boundaries between the home’s interiors and the property’s outside spaces are seamless. Large sliding doors open from the open-plan family room, kitchen and dining area to the west-facing garden. Both the breezeway linking the house to the garage and a huge deck leading from the master suite create more exterior areas.

“The deck is like a whole other playground,” the owner says, adding that they recently hosted a children’s birthday party where all the action was outdoors. “There were light-saber fights on the breezeway and water-pistol games from all over the place,” she says.

The home’s front door leads directly into a cozy living room with a fireplace. The rest of the floor is one big, open space divided by wood-clad boxes used for storage and to hide pipes and wiring. The house as a whole boasts ample storage, a consequence of the client reminding the architect periodically that more is always better when there’s a family involved. The second-floor bedroom is shaped like a long bar and is rotated in relation to the first floor, creating a sheltered space below.

The lower level comprises a media room and guest suite, and a mudroom with more storage space.

With its use of wood and other natural materials, the feel of the home is California modern rather than sleek minimalist modern. “We were led by the clients,” says Smith. “Just like them, the home is casual and warm, not fancy.”

Both the clients and Smith wanted to incorporate as many sustainable elements as possible into the design. Thus, solar panels heat the pool and contribute significantly to reducing the family’s electricity bills. The roof is made of efficient, structurally insulated panels. There is recycled denim insulation, built-in natural ventilation and sunshades on most of the doors, and windows with deep overhangs to temper the light and decrease heat gain in the summer.

One decision the owners made early on was to focus the budget on the architecture and spend less on elements such as the finishes and furniture (see “Money-saving tips”). The result, says Smith, illustrates how one can create a modern home that is timeless but not overly expensive.

“Some people want to create a masterpiece or a ‘final resting place,’ and the home might end up being amazing, but it requires a huge investment of time and money. Here we didn’t want to design an icon or an unnecessary burden for our clients. Its success is due to its configuration of space and light and because the project was driven by all the supporting characters.”

Smith has a term to describe the result: “everyday modernism.”

San Francisco Chronicle, January 13 2010

Photos: Russell Yip/The Chronicle

Who says tech whiz kids don’t have a design sensibility? When Twitter recently moved into its new offices in downtown San Francisco, many of the bright young things who work there were concerned about the decor on their walls. Specifically, they were insistent that a series of cloud decals that had adorned their previous work space - a throwback to an early Twitter logo - should accompany them to their new work space.

Fortunately for them, Sara Morishige Williams, the designer assigned to give the new offices a makeover, and the wife of Twitter co-founder Evan Williams, was more than aware of what was called for, having lived and breathed the Twitter culture since the company started in 2007.

Before anything, however, she had to find offices to accommodate the rapidly expanding team, whose number currently stands at 110 but, given the success of the company’s microblogging service, is likely to grow. Morishige Williams, who has worked on residential interiors but was new to a workplace project, toured a number of spaces that were up for sublease, many of them empty.

Eventually she found sixth-floor offices that had previously been occupied by social-networking site Bebo. A key attraction was that the space had been built out by Brereton Architects a few years ago, which meant Morishige Williams could concentrate on the interiors, as the unit didn’t require any structural changes.

Morishige Williams’ priorities when considering how to give the new space the Twitter imprint revolved around three key issues: familiarity, levity and sustainability.

“Twitter is under an intense spotlight despite being a very young company, but it stays grounded with a culture of humility, empathy and compassion,” she says. “People there care about sustainability and are involved in global issues, so I was careful to take this into consideration with my design and material choices.”

Reception desk re-clad

Morishige Williams says she chose furniture and fittings that would endure, be minimalist and, wherever possible, reuse materials. She started in the vast lobby area by deciding to retain the sweeping reception desk, but give it a new look by having its base re-clad with reclaimed barn wood. She collaborated on this, and several other elements in the work space, with Mark Rogero at Oakland’s Concreteworks. The large Twitter sign on one of the walls in the lobby is made from the same reclaimed barn wood and hot-rolled steel and was fabricated by Lundberg Design.

The lobby also introduces the playful element Morishige Williams was striving for throughout the space. A pair of neon-green deer take pride of place in a corner bay whose giant windows provide stunning views of Yerba Buena Gardens. The animals were garden ornaments when Morishige Williams found them, and somewhat the worse for wear. She repaired and painted them - fixing a pair of real antlers onto one - and the duo accompanied the Twitter team from their former offices. The reception area also features a wall of tree-branch hooks made by John Robohm at Live Wire Farm.

In the open-plan offices themselves, the immediate impression is of natural light and space - neither of which one associates with your typical urban work space. Close inspection reveals a plethora of whimsical design touches - almost all of which have been inspired by nature and the company’s own visual branding.

“I wanted the space to be personal, not unlike a home,” says Morishige Williams. “And I wanted to bring the outdoors in.”

Thus, each of the company’s conference rooms has been named after a bird, and an aluminum cutout of the bird’s silhouette - be it a heron, a skylark or a plover - has been placed on the respective doors.

Concreteworks was commissioned to make another important element for the new space: four outsize conference tables. These were crafted in concrete composed of recycled aggregates, including 40 percent fly ash, and their bases were also clad in barn wood. The piece de resistance is the main conference room’s table, the top inlaid with a scattering of Twitter’s signature bird motifs cut out of white opaque acrylic. Each of the meeting rooms is equipped with extra large whiteboards, because, says Morishige Williams, “everybody here is really into whiteboards.”

The avian theme is repeated on the office’s longest wall, for which Morishige Williams designed a sweep of birds created with custom-made decals. The design was based on a photograph Morishige Williams took of a flock of birds when visiting her father-in-law in snowy Nebraska.

Morishige Williams says she was fortunate that the space’s existing carpet, a striped prism pattern on a black background, was nice enough to keep. She matched colors in the carpet for the walls, which were painted in low-VOC paints. The tones range from robin’s-egg blue to icy green. To create contrast, one wall has been painted dark gray.

Focus on comfort

“In the design of Twitter’s space, I wanted community spaces to have elements of a comfortable living room, where people could escape their desks yet continue working,” says Morishige Williams. With this in mind, many areas in the Twitter headquarters have been given over to comfortable seating.

Morishige Williams chose furniture that, while stylish, was also functional and offered value for money. All the meeting-room chairs are recyclable and stackable. The chairs used in the dining area are the Jake model from Room & Board. As well as in-house lunch, Twitter employees are offered regular teatimes. “Google has its TGIF get-togethers - we have tea,” says Morishige Williams.

Many of the sofas were custom-made by San Francisco company Furniture Envy, which will make pieces to order. Close to the DJ booth that the company inherited sits a row of Chiquita stools by Kenneth Cobonpue. With their seats made of natural rattan poles, they are visually striking but surprisingly comfortable.

Time was in short supply for Morishige Williams, both because the move happened quickly and because it coincided with the birth of her first child. One aspect she knew would make a significant impact was lighting, so she tackled that early on, switching out unattractive fixtures in favor of pendants and shades that cast a warm glow. It proved a relatively easy way to make the space more inviting.

But her finishing touch is perhaps the most telling. In order to make the staff feel welcome in the new work environment, Morishige Williams commissioned small Throwboy pillows for each employee, which were placed on their chairs on their first day in the new offices. Embroidered on each are the words “Home Tweet Home.”

“Sara has successfully translated the essential qualities of Twitter,” says Twitter co-founder Biz Stone. “There is a deep acknowledgment of openness in the layout, and crafty nods toward thinking green with the use of reclaimed barn wood and concrete tabletops made of recycled glass. Technology is driven by nature, by people pushing it in clever new directions, and Sara gets that. …

“The space we occupy in San Francisco is where we hope to do our best work. Sara’s instinct and attention to detail helps inspire us to do just that.”

San Francisco Chronicle, January 3 2010

Photo: Leger Wanaselja Architecture

Maybe it’s the gate made entirely from silver Volvo station wagon doors. Or the doorway awnings, which, in a former life, were hatchbacks on Porsches and Mazdas. Or the white picket fence - it’s made out of green and white road signs, as are railings for the home’s stairs and its light fixtures.

If you’ve cruised the corner of Martin Luther King Jr. Way and Dwight Way in Berkeley, you’ve seen this home. It’s hard to miss. At a minimum, this nine-unit condo development is an attention-grabber.

These repurposed street signs and car parts were intended to add levity and intrigue to the home’s visual landscape. They also helped to add buzz. As soon as the project was completed in February 2004, curious residents and architectural critics alike wanted a peek.

More than 500 people turned up to the property’s first open house, according to Cate Leger, a principal at Berkeley architecture firm Leger Wanaselja, which designed and built the condos.

It turns out the eye-catching sustainable elements visible from the street are just the tip of the iceberg. These units are green to their core, featuring everything from passive solar power systems to recycled glass terrazzo kitchen counters. This becomes clear when one takes a tour of the now for sale second-floor condo at 2474 Martin Luther King Jr. Way, currently priced at $520,000.

Vu Nguyen became the unit’s second owner when he bought the two-bedroom, two-bathroom condo in 2006. Nguyen visited 114 open houses before finding this home - he kept count using a database. But here, he was smitten.

“Nothing compares,” Nguyen said. “I was immediately drawn to the 10-foot ceilings, all the natural light and the loft-like feel of the place,” adding that he preferred the open feel of the lower floor, including the fact that the second bedroom and bathroom are located there, allowing for clear separation and privacy for his roommate.

Ironically, given the building’s impeccable green credentials, Nguyen’s first impressions did not relate to sustainability. But it didn’t take long for him to appreciate the home’s attention to eco-friendly details - most notably a $30 monthly heating bill. Nguyen was also impressed by the quality of the condo’s finishes, particularly the solid construction interior doors.

The condo features polished concrete floors, off-white plaster walls and cream carpeting on the stairs. The kitchen, with its counters, doors and sills handcrafted from salvaged wood and recycled glass, takes up a corner of the living area. The back bedroom/office has personality, featuring slanted half walls and a deep, angular bay window. The full bathroom boasts salvaged glass shelves.

A large skylight is positioned at the top of the two-tone wood and steel staircase and provides lots of natural light as well as natural ventilation. A good-size, low-maintenance deck with views of the East Bay hills and the bay leads off the master bedroom, which also has a full in-suite bathroom.

Nguyen, who is moving so he can accommodate his parents in a larger home, has grown to love some of the home’s finer details, such as the gently tapered, smooth wooden post in his main living and kitchen area, which was fashioned from a tree on the site, and a small alcove with a hefty shelf made of reclaimed wood.

The gated units were built on an infill site, requiring the remodeling of a turn-of-the-century corner store and the new construction of a mixed-use building next door.

Leger said she and Karl Wanaselja, her husband and partner at Leger Wanaselja, had noble ambitions when they designed the residences. Their goal was to use time-tested methods to minimize energy use and to rely heavily on salvaged, recycled and low-toxic finishes. A total of 3 1/2 tons of street signs were used inside and outside the buildings. “We are very proud of this project,” she said. “It’s a great example of green architecture.”

Other measures that contribute to reducing the condo’s environmental impact include the use of blown-in cellulose insulation (made from old telephone books and newspapers) instead of fiberglass, and substituting 50 percent of the cement in the concrete with fly ash (a byproduct of coal burning).

The building won a slew of awards and was featured in Dwell magazine, which quipped, “With its overtly green approach, it seems a perfect architectural summation of [Berkeley's] values.”

New York Times, December 20, 2009

Photo: Heidi Schumann for the New York Times

Walter Hood checks the tidal charts and heads to Crown Memorial State Beach on the island of Alameda at least once a week to run on the sand and take in the sweep of San Francisco Bay from a little-known vantage. Mr. Hood, whose landscape architecture firm designed the grounds of the de Young Museum in San Francisco, lives in Oakland, and he spends a lot of time traveling. In August, he accepted a Cooper Hewitt National Design Award at the White House. (His words have been edited and condensed.)

SENSE OF PLACE Sometimes you forget you live on the ocean. This beach, with its views of the water, mountains and cityscapes, is the closest place to home where I can get a profound understanding of the bay and where I live.

ECHOES OF THE EAST I grew up in North Carolina, and there’s an East Coast flavor to the promenade and the way the garden apartments and “Leave It to Beaver”-style homes here are built right on the water.

LOCAL HAUNT During the week, I can be the only person running on the beach, and it’s so silent. There might just be a few people long-boarding or practicing tai chi. Families come here on the weekends, but it’s never crowded like Ocean Beach. It’s low-key and it’s predominantly locals, not tourists. It reminds me how diverse the Bay Area is — with Latinos, African-Americans, Asians and whites. I remember that this is why I live here.

MESS IT UP Alameda Beach is one of the messy landscapes I like to talk about: it’s not manicured or overly designed. All the layers — the 1970s buildings, the marshes, the driftwood and the old-fashioned signs — are part of an everyday phenomenon. It’s not trying to be something it isn’t.

CITY-CENTRIC This is one of the few places where the view is not dominated by San Francisco’s crown: its skyscrapers and hills. The perspective is South San Francisco, Hunters Point and even, on a good day, the Pac Bell Stadium. Oakland, which I sometimes think has an inferiority complex, is there, too. It’s good to remember that the bay is one continuous place.

San Francisco Chronicle, November 8 2009

Photos: Mike Kepka/The Chronicle

Unlike the architect whose house has a perpetually leaking roof, or the cobbler whose shoes need mending, Michael Pollan has a new garden that speaks of a professional who practices what he preaches. For the author and journalism professor - who has almost single-handedly set the national agenda on food production and, in books such as “The Omnivore’s Dilemma” and “In Defense of Food,” advocated vigorously for fresh, locally produced food - has a front yard that is at once pleasing to the eye, environmentally responsible and very productive.

When Pollan and his wife, artist Judith Belzer, moved to a new home in Berkeley three years ago, they inherited a garden with good intentions but flawed execution. Sited in front of the house, and measuring barely 600 square feet, its design had attempted to accommodate five separate gates leading variously to the street, the driveway, a bike shelter and a side entrance.

Although a kidney-shaped plant bed had been established, the principal element was a curved pathway that swept visitors in and then directly out of the yard, largely ignoring both the generous front porch entrance to the home and the French doors leading into what is now a beautifully renovated kitchen.

“Circulation was definitely an issue,” says Pollan, who adds that the area is also heavily trafficked. “It was important that we had a kitchen garden, but we also wanted it to be beautiful - it’s where guests come in, and we walk through it all the time to take out the trash or compost.”

While the family hoped the modest, fenced-in yard could serve as a place for social gatherings, there were to be no airs and graces. Belzer in particular stressed that the area should not be too stylized - rather she favored a lush but relaxed setting where the couple, their teenage son and their friends would want to spend a lot of time.

Conceding that it was a tall order, the couple asked Bernardo Lopez, a Berkeley landscape designer who has earned a reputation for good-looking gardens that do more than nod to environmental concerns, to rethink the space.

Lopez began by imposing some structure on the hexagonal-shaped space to delineate areas by function and to improve the garden’s flow. A black basalt stone patio, edged in a crescent of Cor-Ten steel, was laid adjacent to the kitchen to create an outdoor eating area. An existing cement wall was used to anchor a deep recycled redwood bench that provides additional opportunities for sitting or lounging.

Steps from the patio lead down into a courtyard, at the heart of which are three beautiful raised beds crafted in Ipe wood and currently bursting with late-season produce. Sand-colored pathways created with crushed decomposed granite, and edged in steel, lead visitors seamlessly around the beds to the home’s different entrances.

A bench for bags

For those arriving from the driveway, perhaps with groceries, a second redwood bench has been judiciously sited in a spot that provides a convenient place to put down heavy bags. It also creates a naturally demarcated route to the kitchen.

On a late-autumn day, the beds are filled with bountiful peppers, tomatoes, zucchini, chard, kale, mustard greens, broccoli, spinach, romaine lettuce and arugula. Lopez says that over the summer, sunflowers and sweet corn plants soared to dizzying heights, as if in competition to reach the sky.

Herbs sown in planters supplement those growing in the beds and include basil, parsley and cilantro. Pots of mint, lemon verbena and lemon balm have been placed close to the house for easy access when preparing teas and infusions.

The raised beds have been designed to double as seating, and they surround a central circular space whose centerpiece is a large antique Indian cooking vessel, which Lopez and Pollan bought on a shopping spree in Sonoma. Pollan says they regularly grill food outside now. In fact, he is planning to cook a suckling pig there when a friend and fellow writer comes to town in a couple of weeks. He is also exploring having a rotisserie element tailor-made to augment his chef’s arsenal.

Lopez has planted every remaining square foot of the yard with a generous assortment of beautiful, drought-resistant plants. “It was a given we wanted to preserve water, and we chose Bernardo partly because he understands xeriscaping so well,” Pollan says.

There are succulents, many of them South African in origin, and several varieties of grasses. Lopez uses repetition in the plants and materials he chooses. He says, it helps to create a dialogue in a garden and convey a sense of cohesiveness.

Stylish in winter, too

He also has an eye for plants that look good year round. “Flowers can come and go in a few weeks,” he says. “But there are many plants whose shapes, leaves and coloring are stunning in their own right.”

A few of the garden’s highlights include a chartreuse gooseberry hybrid, Senecio mandraliscae with its distinctive curved finger-like leaves, a Melianthus major with its spiked reddish-brown blooms and lime-hued foliage, several types of Leucadendrons, some saw-tooth-edged Banksias, Eryngium giganteum, or sea holly, from the thistle family and a fleshy Kalanchoe whose home is a striking Cor-Ten steel planter.

Lopez showed the same appreciation for the architecture of plants in the way he pruned back the foliage on the lower trunks of two existing climbing plants: a South African honeysuckle that wraps itself languorously over one of the garden’s Craftsman-style trellises; and a lovely wisteria that adorns the home’s facade. He took out a rampant climbing passion flower on the principle that, sometimes, “less is more.”

The yard already boasted persimmon and fig trees, and Lopez added an apricot tree that is espaliered in front of a window to provide shade and privacy.

The overall palette is subtle: a blend of silvers and salmons, sages and gray-greens with the occasional shot of muted color such as the icy pink artichoke-like flowers on an exotic-looking protea.

“Design is not a nonstop train. We added some elements as we worked and got to know the garden,” says Lopez, who introduced some space that wasn’t on the original blueprint to ensure the courtyard didn’t feel crowded.

The result has exceeded all of Pollan and Belzer’s expectations. “We love spending time there,” Pollan says. “And when we have parties, guests always want to linger in the garden - we can’t persuade them to come inside. We couldn’t be happier.”

New York Times, November 1, 2009

Photo of Rob Forbes by Heidi Schumann for The New York Times

For Rob Forbes, a San Francisco designer who was the founder of the furniture company Design Within Reach, South Park in San Francisco encapsulates his evolving feelings about the ways humans use the space around them, with both purpose and serendipity. He chose to locate his new venture, Studio Forbes, on the leafy, oval-shaped park because, he said, he had never made a traditional separation between work and play and one of his greatest pleasures was people-watching. (His words have been edited and condensed.)

INSPIRATION I call the park, which is a magnet for creative businesses, a civil demonstration of democracy because of its mix of architects, homeless people, art patrons, bikers and tattooed kids.

HUMAN SCALE When I heard they were calling the documentary on national parks “America’s Best Idea,” I thought, Give me a break. But, actually, it’s true: public spaces that people actually use are the acid test of democracy. This park puts me in my place.

DOING LUNCH I have meetings at the park tables. The studio has open-plan offices so, ironically, we come to a public park for privacy. I just designed a bike bell there with the designers Pablo Pardo and Oliver DiCicco. I can’t say I’m on the youthful side — I don’t use the swings. But I like how authentic the park’s restaurants are.

STYLE COUNSEL The park’s design is quirky, full of funny shapes that would drive a modernist mad, like the masonry pathways that evolved organically. I’m not nostalgic about the past, but I love that this place has the best parts of tradition.

EAVESDROPPING There was an intensity about the park during the dot-com boom. It’s still a place where people are making stuff happen. But no one is boasting about it. This, right here, is the ballet of the sidewalks that Jane Jacobs talked about.

San Francisco Chronicle, September 30 2009

Photos: Frederic Larson

Like “Tuscan palazzo” or “Provencal villa,” “Storybook house” is a delightful real estate label whose reality rarely lives up to its moniker. Pay a visit to Julie and Gerry Gorham’s home on Fernwood Drive in Oakland, however, and that “Storybook” label barely begins to cover the charm of their beautifully restored 1924 cottage.
The impression begins with a walk over the property’s romantic bridge spanning Temescal Creek and a view of the house, nestled in a beautiful garden with a cascading waterfall, a sea of green and white planting and a grouping of magnificent old oaks.

The Gorhams bought the two-bedroom home - which is on Sunday’s Oakland Heritage Alliance Houses of Fernwood tour in the Montclair district - 13 years ago. At the time it was, they say, “a wreck.” But Julie Gorham had coveted it for some time. The couple are serial remodelers - over the years they have refurbished and lived in 14 homes across the Bay Area - but they always had a special place in their hearts for Montclair.

“I had walked past this house many times and admired the garden, which was kept fastidiously neat by its owner,” Julie Gorham says. “But the house had suffered lots of abuse. There was so much to do.”

Clear vision

From the beginning, Gorham had a clear vision of how the home should look. Although she says she’s not a designer, she spent many years immersed in the world of interior design - 14 working at San Francisco’s Decorator Showcase - and is skilled when it comes to pulling together a look. Combine that with her love of the French rustic style, a passion for antiques and a commitment to sensitive restoration, and the result is a veritable jewel of a house.

The Storybook architectural style was popularized in 1920s England and the United States and echoes Hollywood design sometimes known as Fairy Tale or Hansel and Gretel. Architects who worked in this genre in the Bay Area include W.R. Yelland, W.W. Dixon and Carr Jones. Characteristics include turrets with conical roofs, swaybacked rooflines, sloped walls and round-topped doors.

The Fernwood neighborhood boasts one of the most concentrated collections of Storybook houses in the country, and both Montclair’s library and its firehouse are built in this style.

Another feature of these homes is their size. The couple have never been drawn to large houses, and this one is no exception.

“It has everything you need,” Gorham says, “a living room, dining room and study. Why does anyone want a mausoleum where half the rooms are never used?”

Originally a modest one-bedroom cottage, the house had an addition built on the rear, probably in the 1930s. Given the house’s condition, the couple decided they needed to strip it to its skeleton, except for the pretty bay window on the front. The result was so extreme that not long after the major work began, the Gorhams’ son stopped by and asked them where they had put the house.

They installed heating, double-paned windows and several sets of French doors; had all the walls refinished in a thin-wall plaster; and introduced lots of curves, which are typical to this style of home.

“Everything was so square,” Gorham says.

There are now several open archways instead of doors, rounded moldings and even a porthole-style window.

The original railing on the stairs leading from the double-height living room up to the second floor looked like a picket fence, Gorham says. She commissioned a friend of a friend to create an undulating one in Douglas fir to be more in keeping with the whimsical Storybook style. Salvaged wood was used to make exposed joists to complement the existing ceiling beams. These were finished with intricate metalwork designed by Eric Clausen, the Oakland master blacksmith.

The home’s imposing fireplace is made with clinker bricks - the discolored and distorted kind once often rejected by craftsmen but now coveted for their distinctiveness. There’s a small book-lined study where the couple read and watch TV.

“Sometimes we get all the family in here,” Gorham says. “It’s cozy but nice.”

Just enough space

Gorham returns to the question of size when recalling a house she lived in San Ramon. “It was so big you could fit this entire house in its living room,” she says. “Who needs all that space?”

With a new sage green and marble kitchen, the house was coming together beautifully. The icing on the cake was some new furnishings, and for this Gorham embarked on two shopping trips, one to France, the other to England.

Accompanied by a designer friend, she headed for a vintage fabric shop housed in a Cotswolds manor house and the antiquarian flea market in Paris, among other places. The expeditions yielded a distressed bibliothèque used to store crockery in the kitchen, an elegant secretary in the living room and a grand old armoire in the master bedroom. She bought two ironwork chandeliers from a man sitting on the curb in France and added to her collection of miniature military hats at a specialist shop near the Louvre museum.

Perhaps Gorham’s favorite purchase was the 19th century tapestry that she bought on the Paris trip and that hangs on a dining room wall.

All the soft furnishings in the home have been chosen to be comfortable as well as stylish.

“We don’t like stiff and formal,” Gorham says. “We want our grandchildren to have fun when they are here.”

All of the homes on the Oakland Heritage Fernwood Tour are small and intimate. Many of their owners have lived there for decades and raised families there - with no notion of needing extra bathrooms, media or family rooms. This and the thoughtful way these robustly built homes have been maintained and preserved serve as a reminder that the concept of living modestly and sustainably, while back in vogue, is hardly a new invention.