Category: Blog

Stay up-to-date with the Levy Art + Architecture team.

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MANIFESTO: Respond

5 R’s (Reflect, Respond, Respect, Restore, Regenerate)

RESPOND: ARCHITECTURE IS POLITICAL, IT SHAPES PUBLIC AND PRIVATE

In a world of dwindling resources and increasing population, it is impossible to escape the fact that architectural acts are political acts. Allocation — of material and energy — has profound implications on the public welfare and is, therefore, political.

With building operations (heating, cooling, lighting and powering them) producing nearly 40% of Co2 emissions worldwide, our task goes beyond “net-zero” or “carbon neutral.” We must strive for “restorative” architecture: resilient structures that draw carbon from an increasingly unpredictable atmosphere while sheltering us. Each project is an opportunity to innovate and improve. Performance matters and can and should inspire new design idioms.

Beyond our immediate work, we, as Architects, are uniquely suited to have and to exercise opinions about local and national policy. Questions concerning land use, energy, infrastructure, agricultural practice and their implications for environmental justice, equity for native peoples, and climate change are ultimately architectural questions. They concern patterns of settlement and consumption of resources that are fundamental to design and planning thinking. They challenge us to apply our knowledge while at the same time repositioning the architectural problem and the work of architects in general in regards to privilege and inclusion.

Increasingly, legislation, more than design, shapes our world. To practice we must be proactive, visible advocates for: design, our cities, our farmland, natural systems and all people. We have collectively been educated to materialize ideas that exist in real physical settings, so we have a keen understanding of the relationship between the standard of living and the raw materials that go into it.

Now more than being designers and planners, we are resource allocators. We are entrusted with the responsibility for careful application in the creation of living, productive environments.

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MANIFESTO: Reflect

5 R’s (Reflect, Respond, Respect, Restore, Regenerate)

REFLECT: ARCHITECTURE IS CONCEPT, MATERIALIZED AND REALIZED

The era of information acceleration has fueled social tensions resulting in nativism that distracts from the global challenge of climate change.  Architects in the early twenty-first century need to be so much more than master builders, we are called to be socio-geo-political-environmentalists, renaissance people.    

Work that is to have meaning in this context must be approached with a broad understanding; culture, society, art, history, physics and chemistry.  This is what Regenerative Practitioners term “proximal wholes,” the practices that are adjacent and relevant to ours.  In every case we need to take a moment to reflect and ask how our efforts and the efforts of everyone involved in a building project will impact, influence, and improve the entire environment in which they exist.  

This could be termed “radical contextualism” where context exists not only as a physical remnant but also, socially and historically.  This is Place based thinking where each unique location is part of the larger whole  “living system.”.   Architecture that understands its place in living systems can be better than neutral, it can contribute to human and environmental well-being. 

Working in this fashion demands the simultaneous contemplation of the social and the physical sciences and that makes our work distinct from that of all other professions.  In this sense it is a “total” occupation and requires renaissance people for its successful practice.   

Great architecture has always been based in clear, concise conceptual ideas or ideals.  Relevant concepts arise from the spirit of the times, the zeitgeist, that demands new solutions and new forms.  Coupled with innovation in material and technical sciences we find a basis, a conceptual framework, for design in the twenty first century.

Read the rest of the manifesto here.

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Press Release: Natural Discourse & Levy Art + Architecture present “Consider the Oyster: Art, Science & Culture”

A Storefront Art Exhibit Opens February 27, 2021, 6 pm to 9 pm outside 2501 Bryant St, Rain or Shine

Join us as we consider pinhole cameras inside oyster shells, native oyster restoration at the Presidio and oyster farming and feasting in Tomales Bay. Participating artists and scientists: Taylor Griffith, David Janesko, Margaret Ikeda and Evan Jones, Chris Kallmyer, Gwendolyn Meyer and Jonathan Young.

David Janesko’s poetic series Forest/Oyster was the initial inspiration for the exhibit. Delicate images of the forest surrounding the Willapa Bay in Oregon are imprinted on the inside of the shells. Jonathon Young, wildlife ecologist at the Presidio, provided us with concrete oyster reef balls and computer-designed oyster panels by architecture faculty Margaret Ikeda and Evan Jones of Architectural Ecologies Lab. These objects are part of a native oyster restoration project at the new Quartermaster Reach tidal wetland at the Presidio. Taylor Griffith’s Heard Above, a 19 minute video was filmed at Quartermaster Reach and will be projected every weekend from dusk to 9 pm. From ecology to oyster farming and culinary delights, Chris Kallmyer will be showing Consider the Oyster a 2 channel video about the last year of the Drake’s Bay Oyster company and a series of Gwendolyn Meyer’s photos from her beautiful book Oyster Culture.

Healthy oyster reefs are a proven way to effectively reduce water pollution and improve the marine environment. While other bivalves also possess the ingenious ability to clean water while flushing out pollutants as they feed, none are simultaneous symbols of feasting, as is the oyster.

Gwendolyn Meyer

Natural Discourse is collaborating with Levy Art + Architecture to consider this wondrous bi-valve.

Natural Discourse is an ongoing series of symposia, publications and site-specific art installations that explores the connections between art, culture, science and site. Founded in 2012 by Shirley Alexandra Watts, a landscape artist, architect and contractor with extensive experience curating, managing and installing public art exhibitions. Projects include the University of California Botanical Garden at Berkeley, Los Angeles County Arboretum and Botanic Garden, and Sagehen Creek Field Station. Natural Discourse has been awarded grants from Los Angeles County Arts Commission, the Pasadena Art Alliance and the National Endowment for the Arts. naturaldiscourse.org

Levy Art & Architecture is an interdisciplinary studio that functions at the intersection of architecture, environmentalism and art. A full-service design firm founded by Ross Levy with specialties in sustainability and construction, it is also an experimental art space. Exhibits typically concern larger issues from social to environmental. The architecture and art mutually inform one another. 

Together, these two teams have been working on a series of environmentally-focused art productions in galleries in and around California. 

RSVP on LinkedIn

Live oysters will be served! Social distance and safety protocols will be enforced.

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​​​​​​​Press Release: Quartermaster Reach Improves Habitat and Visitor Access

San Francisco, CA (December 11, 2020) – Next week, the Presidio Trust unveils to visitors seven acres of restored tidal marshland and a new pedestrian trail near San Francisco Bay, marking a significant milestone in the 20-year revitalization of one of San Francisco’s original watersheds.

The site is known as Quartermaster Reach, named for the U.S. Army’s Quartermaster Corps, which operated in the area when the Presidio was a military post. The project transforms a formerly paved construction site under the “Presidio Parkway” approach to the Golden Gate Bridge into a beautiful new wetland ecosystem. Creeks now flow above ground along the Presidio’s largest watershed known as Tennessee Hollow to San Francisco Bay through Crissy Marsh, improving the biodiversity of the Presidio. The site will allow visitors to enjoy an intimate experience of nature just minutes from downtown.

Work at Quartermaster Reach brought an 850-foot length of stream once buried in a pipe back above ground through excavation. Box culverts were then installed beneath Mason Street at Crissy Marsh to allow the fresh water of the stream to flow into the saltwater marsh and San Francisco Bay, creating unique brackish habitat that is vital to a variety of plant and animal species.

Specially fabricated fiberglass panels installed within the culverts, and concrete and shell “reef balls” placed in the marsh channels, are part of a unique experiment to promote the resurgence of the native Olympia​ oyster. The team is currently planting 23,000 plants – including more than 40 different species of saltmarsh and dune plants grown in the Presidio Nursery – to create habitat attractive for the Presidio’s many migrating shorebirds and water animals like fish and crabs.

“Our planet is in the midst of an extinction crisis due to the destruction of habitat. Projects like this give us hope that we can turn the tide. We’ve turned back time more than a century to restore the natural systems of the Presidio’s shoreline. We hope the lessons we learn here will be helpful to others who are also committed to restoring Bay ecology,” says Jean Fraser, CEO of the Presidio Trust.

With the addition of a pedestrian bridge and trail connector, visitors can hike from Crissy Field’s East Beach, under the Presidio Parkway, and along the Tennessee Hollow Trail all the way to the southern end of the Presidio.

“The pandemic has shown us how critical access to nature is, with the myriad of health benefits it provides for human beings – especially in an urban environment,” says Laura Joss, Superintendent of Golden Gate National Recreation Area. “With the adjacent Presidio Tunnel Tops project opening in October of 2021, these new park sites will continue our work in providing a national park experience for all.”

Quartermaster Reach is a huge milestone in the 20-year effort of the Presidio Trust, the Golden Gate National Parks Conservancy, and the National Park Service to restore the park’s largest watershed. Work has been completed in sections at sites including El Polin Spring, MacArthur Meadow, and Thompson Reach. Other sections will be restored in coming years.

“We are so grateful to the people who have supported the restoration of this watershed, from individual donors to Parks Conservancy members and volunteers,” says Christine Lehnertz, President & CEO of the Golden Gate National Parks Conservancy. “This is an incredible gift to this region, and builds on the work that began in 2001 with the restoration of Crissy Field and Crissy Marsh.”

About Tennessee Hollow Watershed

The Presidio of San Francisco is the traditional territory of the Yelamu, a local tribe of Ramaytush Ohlone peoples of the San Francisco Peninsula. Yelamu familes lived in the village of Petlenuc.

The Tennessee Hollow Watershed’s creek system is comprised of three tributaries that converge at MacArthur Meadow. The stream, dubbed Petlenuc Creek, then continues north in a single channel through a variety of habitats, ultimately emptying into Crissy Marsh and San Francisco Bay. For centuries, people used this creek system as a water source, beginning with the native Ohlone and later Spanish settlers. Over time, the militaries of Spain, Mexico, and the United States substantially altered where and how the creeks flow, creating dams and wells, and ultimately forced the water underground into pipes to create dry land for building.

Restoration of the Tennessee Hollow Watershed began in the late 1990s at the headwaters near the Presidio’s Inspiration Point. Major revitalization projects have included the restoration of Crissy Marsh (2001), Thompson Reach (2005/2006), El Polín Spring (2010/2011), YMCA Reach (2013/2014), Quartermaster Riparian (2014/2015), and MacArthur Meadow (2015/2017). After Quartermaster Reach (2020), the final sections to be restored are the Eastern Tributary (under Morton Field) and Central Tributary (between El Polin and MacArthur Meadow).

Project Support

Quartermaster Reach restoration is made possible through the support of the Environmental Protection Agency through the San Francisco Bay Water Quality Improvement Fund, the San Francisco International Airport wetlands mitigation agreement, the National Park Service, the Evelyn and Walter Haas, Jr. Fund, and the David L. Davies Fund of the Weeden Foundation. Generous members of the public have made substantial donations in other areas of the watershed through the Golden Gate National Parks Conservancy.

About the Partnership for the Presidio

The Partnership for the Presidio works to sustain the Presidio’s natural beauty, preserve its history, maintain its funding, and create inspiring national park experiences for visitors. Two federal agencies manage the Presidio jointly: the Presidio Trust and the National Park Service, with support from their non-profit partner, the Golden Gate National Parks Conservancy. Together, the partnership has transformed one of America’s most storied military posts into the centerpiece of one of the most visited places in the national park system.

Photo by Cris Gebhardt Photography.

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2021 Architecture Manifesto: The 5 R’s

When social, economic, political and technological conditions change to the extent that they have recently, the architectural project needs to be re-assessed,  and re-imagined.  It’s timely to take a moment to reflect on the practice of architecture in the cultural context, taking special care to understand how it operates simultaneously as an artifact of, and contributing factor in, the creation of that culture. 

The post industrial has given way to the information, and now, the dis-information age.  We have experienced sudden and ongoing disruptions; tech, climate, public health and confidence that have led us to directly consider the nature of space, public and private, essential or expendable, secure or vulnerable.   The promise of global platforms, the presumed democratizing influence of seeing and understanding the “other” has given way to a darker potential that foments and divides. 

Patterns of settlement, our shared, daily, physical experience of built and unbuilt environments, provides a common context on a world we all share with an environment we all depend on. 

It is in this context that we seek to reposition architecture and assert its essential role.  It is the material expression of culture.  It can provide an intellectual and spatial framework through which to try to comprehend, to frame, and begin to address the complicated socio-geo-political- reality, a reality that we all share and existential problem, of our time.

Read each of the R’s here as they are published:

1) Reflect

2) Respond

3) Respect

4) Restore (stay tuned)

5) Regenerate (stay tuned)

Comment and share your thoughts about this architecture manifesto on LinkedIn.

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Thanks to Fire Resistant Architecture, UC Santa Cruz – Big Creek Reserve Unharmed by Dolan Fire

We were relieved to learn that the Research and housing that we recently completed at the UCSC Big Creek Reserve escaped the Dolan Fire undamaged thanks to fire resistant architecture and the work of Reserve managers and UC staff alongside CDF to face the emergency. It is also the result of good planning that included WUI (Wildland Urban Interface) standards for fire-resistant construction, water storage and site preparedness. ⁠
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Resilience in the face of climate change, and the study of how the coastal ecosystem is responding is a big part of the mission of The Reserve. The Conservation Biologists who study and work at Big Creek know the fire cycle from academic and up-close-and-personal perspectives. We appreciate and support their work and are glad that advanced planning, architecture, and design helped in some way.⁠

Working with the Conservation Biology Department, Levy Art + Architecture developed fire-resistant designs for a living classroom, scientific research housing and staff housing on the 7000 acre Natural Reserve site. In addition to developing an appropriate architectural language, we have coordinated a project team to create a complete, standalone facility that is self-powering, and environmentally neutral in terms of water supply and wastewater disposal. The level of difficulty is increased by the close proximity to the pristine Big Creek and its riparian zone. Budget constraints were extreme as we were asked to develop two, separate sites, that each required complete infrastructure for water, power, wastewater, road and fire access, as well as protection for sensitive environments and species. We have worked through a rigorous UC process and created an exemplary architectural response.

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Levy Art & Architecture’s “Noe Valley Craftsman” featured in Spaces Magazine Winter / Spring 2020

A NOE VALLEY CRAFTSMAN GOES BACK TO NATURE

by LAURA MAUK, PHOTOGRAPHS BY JOE FLETCHER for Spaces Magazine

A SAN FRANCISCO DESIGN DUO MODERNIZED A TRADITIONAL CRAFTSMAN HOME BY OPENING IT TO THE OUTDOORS.

Noe Valley House Front

“THERE’S A SENSE OF WANTING to bring back the elemental, the wild,” says designer Kevin Hackett, whose firm Síol Studios recently joined forces with architect Ross Levy to transform a modest bungalow on a down-sloping lot in San Francisco’s Noe Valley into a light-filled three-story home that’s woven into its valley landscape. “I think we crave nature more than ever because we’re not connecting to it as much,” Hackett says. From a curb perspective, there’s no indication that Hackett and Levy’s design facilitates a connection to nature. Its gray-painted Craftsman-style facade, just like those around it, references the city’s architectural past, when punched windows, low ceilings, opaque walls, and small rooms represented the idea of home. “It’s the old fabric, which city planning authorities demand we keep because they feel it maintains the general charm and character of San Francisco,” Levy says. The architect and modernist at heart did what many city architects do and created openness and airiness in the rear and the interior of the house, while leaving its traditional-style street presentation. “It’s hidden architecture,” Levy says. The two residents, who work in technology and community arts and organization, pass through the entry and traverse a steel-grate bridge into an expansive living, dining and kitchen area on the house’s top level. Levy punctuated the open-plan space — and the entire rear facade — with glass and steel that visually explodes with the sublime greenery of the valley below. “You begin with a Craftsman aesthetic, but then step over the threshold and kind of float on that bridge and it’s almost like you’ve walked into a treehouse,” Hackett says. “The bridge lets you know you’re entering new territory and sets up the experience for the rest of the home.” Levy also designed a suspended walnut-and-steel staircase with a slim silhouette that accentuates the airiness of the beamed living space and leads to a new rooftop deck Hackett designed. The light feel of the staircase marks your ascension to the highest point of the home, where a concrete fire pit and bluestone pavers offset built-in redwood benches and a red cedar hot tub. It’s a space above the treetops that’s abuzz with the sounds and sights of the city.

Back to Nature: Spaces Magazine Spread Featuring Levy Art & Architecture

Inspired by the ways the architecture integrates with the terrain, Hackett appointed the interior with natural materials and finishes. Gauze-like sheers dress the steel-framed windows in the kitchen-dining-and-living area, mitigating the sunlight that washes over the space’s lime plaster wall.

“The plaster almost sucks in that light, accentuating and reflecting it,” Hackett says. “Everything is pared down so the focus is on the poetics of the sunlight.” The designer employed walnut flooring that lends still more warmth and texture and pays homage to the tree trunks that populate the valley. The kitchen island, too, is crafted with walnut as well as blackened steel. “It’s as if the walnut comes up and out of the floor,” Hackett says. “And the steel will wear beautifully and exhibit a nice patina.” A brilliant and massive painting by Jet Martinez that depicts riotous florals marks the kitchen area, making it appear more like a gallery corner than a functional space.

As you move to the lower floors, where Levy situated the bedrooms and bathrooms, there’s a quieter sense of being anchored. Hackett and Levy devised a shifting materiality for the staircases to enhance the sensation of moving from high to low: the airy steel-and-walnut up to the roof, walnut and walnut-and-concrete staircases from the living room down to the bedrooms; solid cast-concrete stairs to the ground level.

The bathroom design adds more sensory impressions. A lime plaster wall in the second-level master bath provides yet another canvas for sunlight play, and in the ground-level bath, a plant wall within a light well presses up against a partially etched glass floor-to-ceiling window, creating the feeling of being outdoors.

“The way you’re drenched in greenery and sunlight is remarkable,” Hackett says. Levy agrees: “It’s rare in San Francisco to be able to experience the outdoors while you shower,” the architect says.

Hackett covered the ground-level bath’s shower walls in idiosyncratically textured clay tile that harnesses glittering sunlight and bounces it around in a beautiful way. “The clay has amazing subtleties,” the designer says. “This shower is an experience that slows down mind-and-body space, offering an opportunity for true pause.”

The entire home “has a natural vibe so you almost forget you’re in San Francisco,” Levy says. “When you stare out the back of the house, you’re not looking at the downtown skyline or the Golden Gate Bridge. You’re looking at the valley and it’s this peaceful, beautiful thing.”

It’s a mood Hackett deliberately sought to cultivate, given how technology and constant scrolling impose a staccato rhythm to modern life. “Pinterest and Instagram can be a dangerous vacuum of style,” says the designer, who specifically avoids letting clients describe the way they want spaces to look and instead asks them to identify the way they want to feel and live in each area of their home. “I don’t want to talk about aesthetics,” he says. “I want to know what kind of sensory experiences they’re after.” Hackett finds that during these conversations, a desire to connect with nature emerges practically every time. “Our bodies and minds are attuned to natural systems,” he says. “Before we leap into the science behind this thing or the other, we need a firm grasp on our humanity.”

More images may be found on the project page.

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Architects Design for People and Communities at the Same Time

Architects design

In conversation with Ross Levy, Architect and Chairman of the Public Policy Advocacy Committee, which works with cities and local agencies to create more affordable housing and streamline permitting for communities. Words and photography by Jean-Philippe Defaut.

“We live in an age when unnecessary things are our only necessities.” — Oscar Wilde

San Francisco, a city which prides itself on leading the world in technology. It attracts talent and wealth from all over the globe and has become a constantly evolving urban landscape. It is the most expensive city in the U.S.; a fertile place for creativity, forward thinking and entrepreneurship. With a concentration of residents earning well into the six figures, It also has a homeless crisis that is blatantly ignored(a story for another time). In SF, space is one of the last remaining commodities that people need to rethink, redesign and consume on a regular basis. Paradoxically, The City of San Francisco has yet to come up to speed with the pace at which things are moving. As one goes about rebuilding a home or developing property, it’s evident that the regulators are conflicted from within. They seem to be lobbying for a change in the law, that many believe contradict its own purpose. It is a pro-housing-anti-growth law that will impact property and a wide range of individuals and organizations: Owners, buyers, sellers, realtors, mortgage companies, developers, construction companies, contractors, interior and landscape designers, architects, and the list goes on…

On architectural law & communities

“We all commit to architecture. It’s good for everyone. It’s a public service and we work in a very public setting. We are leading edge and we are not interested in gratifying the wealthy or creating class warfare. We work with our client’s money, not just for it. That means we have to guide them wisely and collectively beyond fulfilling their aesthetic desires, contributing to a community without alienating potential.” — Ross Levy

“We have to take the blinkers off and manage egos on both sides of the fence, diplomatically,” says Levy. Supervisor Peskin’s proposed legislation is intended to revise and align the definition of demolition across The Planning and Building Codes, a much-needed clarification, but there are other aspects that more than one architect and their current, or prospective clients will take issue with. On the surface of the proposed legislation, it all sounds kosher: to preserve existing housing, recapture the value of expansion via additional units of housing and ensure compliance with and enforceability of, San Francisco’s Planning and Building Codes. But what this really means goes beyond that. In SF, most houses are old, built of wood and more importantly, are structurally unfit to survive a major earthquake. A proper upgrade generally means work throughout the structure, a scope that by the definitions included in this proposed legislation would be defined as “demolition.” Demolition requests require Conditional Use Authorization through the Planning Commission, a body that is already overburdened. Reviewing each and every small residential addition in the queue with downtown highrises and mass transit upgrades is clearly not going to alleviate the backlog or create housing in any meaningful way.

On the contrary, the proposal will lead to an exponential increase in the caseload, further compounding the issues of time and cost that make housing here unaffordable, to begin with, and penalizing families and longtime residents unfairly. Their proposed changes to the law will make it near impossible for anything to go ahead. By overlaying a series of compounding issues: demolition, preservation, housing and affordability, the legislation attempts too much and contradicts some of its better intentions.

The Planning Department has a different definition to the Building Departments’. In order to undertake a project, never mind complete it, one has to fulfill criteria in both planning and building regulations. Renovation always involves some level of demolition. The ‘don’t touch it’ or ‘leave it alone” attitude means nothing happens and this doesn’t help the Building Department maintain its standards, or The City to produce housing. If we want to preserve appearances, great. Honesty in construction is not saving an old building. Just not touching it is unrealistic, does not equal preservation and furthermore, it’s open to abuse. In a nutshell: the structural reality contradicts the Planning Code.

We need to agree on a method for recording how this structure appears currently so it gets put back exactly as it was. I also want to be honest and realistic about the construction of old wooden buildings. Just saying ‘I’m saving a piece of it’ is an out-and-out lie. No one does it, it’s a bad way to construct a building. It’s ridiculous. So let’s stop lying to ourselves, let’s stop lying to each other, let’s say what it is. If we like the appearance of historic buildings, let’s value that and not say that the only way to preserve it is just not to touch it because we need the upgrades, we want to make better buildings. No one is going to argue about that.We can work together to create a law and a system to record what was there and a standard to which you need to put it back. . — Ross Levy

Eminent domain across the city?

SF has recently seen its fair share of conflicts in developments with ‘monster homes’ reaching GodZillow(!) prices, not just due to demand, but also to process and time and a political process that anticipates and exacerbates acrimony. To support communities, what the legislation is suggesting is both ‘downzoning’, the total volume in which you are entitled to build is getting smaller, and ‘upzoning’ in that reduced envelope you are entitled, and encouraged, to build more units. In short: unless you give us an additional unit, we won’t let you build a bigger house, and if you do give the unit, your living space will likely become smaller. If this is eminent domain, isn’t there a potential requirement for The City to pay fair market value for the right?

Furthermore, if you want to make an application, you have to state your case publicly in front of The Planning Commission and argue why you want a larger home even though the zoning today allows you to do so. Stating your case in public is a waste of everyone’s time. They debate downtown skyscrapers, Treasure Island development, mass transit for the city and issues that exceed an individual’s small additional rendition. Surely the Planning Commission has bigger fish to fry than debating 10% additions on a private house. It’s social engineering: if you want a bigger home, go somewhere else. This is a huge bias against people who already have large homes to the detriment of those who aspire to have a slightly larger home.

Property rights are being taken in the name of the public interest. We already have a lot of layers before we can do anything. Streamlining is badly needed to address our housing issues. Why is the solution to regulate more and restrict potential? The public interest is pretty well protected. In every application for an addition, even the smallest is subject to discretionary review at the Planning Commission. Rhetorically, is the City looking to infiltrate the private realm for political reasons to show it’s dealing with the housing crisis? Privateers are not going to solve the housing shortage. The potential of one’s property changes as a function of this law. Its value diminishes; you can do less with the property that you buy. In their Expansion Reform document, they clearly state: Discourage so-called ‘monster homes’ by requiring the Planning Commission to determine that Major Expansions are ‘necessary and desirable’ to the community.

Definitions matter and alignment would mean progress at this point: how can the expansion of a house be necessary to the community? What defines ‘major expansion’ on a house? Who gets to decide if one needs a bigger home? And on what grounds? This not going to create more opportunity for people to come and live here.

Full circle

Oscar Wilde visited San Francisco in March 1882 and lectured at Platt’s Hall on the notion of Art Decoration! Being the Practical Application of the Esthetic Theory to Everyday Home Life and Art Ornamentation! Platt’s Hall on Montgomery Street in SF’s Financial District has morphed repeatedly into what the modern world has required at any given moment. Today, it’s retail units and offices. Tomorrow it could be a virtual space…

Perhaps that is the paradox of the Bay Area, the reluctant metropolis as outgoing Director of the think tank SPUR, Gabriel Metcalf reflected upon his departure: “It’s harder to tell stories that show how things could work out the right way. But that’s what we need to do: we need to be able to tell stories that show a path from where we are to where we want to be.” If San Francisco is to come through its various issues, it may need to take a good look at its tracks over the past few decades and consider its own history as part of its evolution.

Levy Art & Architecture is a San Francisco based architectural practice that is steadily developing homes in the Bay Area, with a mission to work alongside city planning beyond just getting the permits. We will be publishing perspective, articles and stories on a regular basis.

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Value Engineering: Combining Budget, Design and Clarity

Value Engineering combines budget, design and clarity

“Value Engineering” is an often used, and poorly understood, term. There is a time in the life of every architectural project where design intention and budget need to meet.

Design is an informed response to a series of, sometimes conflicting, priorities. We have been trained to believe that a conceptual approach to design yields the most meaningful results by providing a framework for organizing these diverse design requirements.

While conceptually motivated design thinking is important at every stage, it actually serves its most critical function during the most mundane phase, Value Engineering.

What is Value Engineering?

Value Engineering is the process whereby we alter reconsider, modify or remove design elements in the service of reducing the budget for a given project.

Conceptual thinking underpins all design decisions for a project by providing a logical framework in which they can be understood together. This is true both for the initiation of schematic ideas, their integration in the design solution and, in many cases, their elimination from the scheme.

Each and every element has a certain necessity associated with it.  As design evolves, it is common for some elements, formative ideas that were useful in the project conception, to remain, even if they are no longer particularly relevant. These are the perfect targets for Value Engineering. Removing or altering them actually supports the design, improves it, while at the same time saving money.

Importance of Streamlining the Design

Far from being a contradiction, streamlining the design saves money and, at the same time, improves the expression and the finished experience. Value Engineering is not a slash and burn race to the bottom, when contemplated correctly, it is one of the most important design opportunities.

Value engineering is a normal part of the design process. As we work to justify our architectural vision with the reality of a budget, we have an opportunity to make better design decisions, clarifying and improving the architecture while being responsible managers.

Looking For Architectural Services In San Francisco, California, or elsewhere?

At Levy Art + Architecture, we’re passionate about both the past and future of San Francisco architecture. We love San Francisco’s history and mythology.

We’re committed to bringing that heritage into the future. If you’re looking for architectural services in or around San Francisco, contact us today.

Based in San Francisco, California, Levy Art & Architecture specializes in commercial and residential projects, with the goal of creating an innovative architectural design consistent with the client’s vision, sensitive to the context and the environment.  A  team of professionals with extensive experience and multi-disciplinary backgrounds handles a wide range of project at every scale.