Archives: Portfolio

Winfield Street

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A Bespoke Personal Oasis

We first worked on this property twenty years ago. It was one of the earliest things I did in San Francisco.  Now that I think about it, I probably swung a hammer there.   

The earlier project had “opened” the house, literally.  We’d cut an oversized hole, about ten feet square and installed a custom stair that curves gently up.  Funny side story: the stair builder showed up on a weekend, and no-one was on the job, so he broke in and installed the stairs… obviously, a character. 

The rest of that job was to expose the gable roof, build the vaulted ceiling and install new clerestory glass, up to the new ceiling height. 

Years later, the owner — a single man — called to say that he wanted to do the next phase of the work: a bathroom. But not just any bathroom.  He wanted a piece of minimalism that would be luxurious, sublime. 

We worked with every fine detail and closely with the builders to coordinate structure and finish from the beginning of the project.  We integrated material choices with a floating ceiling, concealed lighting and translucent glass walls to create an earthly but immaterial sense of place, a refuge worthy of a gentleman.

The result was a truly elegant, bespoke design.

Architect: Ross Levy⁠ (Levy Art + Architecture)⁠
General Contracting: Kevin Webb Construction

The Ark: Family in Place

Multi-Generational Living above the Castro in San Francisco

We’ve had one walk-in client in the 20 years we’ve been doing this work. She appeared in our studio one day to say that she was looking for an architect. She’d lived in Noe Valley for more than thirty years and walked the neighborhood every day — oftentimes right by our front door.

On this day she stopped in because she had decided to redesign her family home. She wanted to create multi-generational living for herself, her adult son, and his family. They shared the vision and worked together with us to create this interconnected set of homes.

The original structure was very basic: one story on top of a garage, capped by a gable roof. There is a small but interesting backyard with tall, mature yucca trees that create a unique environment.

Our scheme adds a third and fourth story. The form of the building is defined by setbacks that form front and back third-floor decks and a butterfly roof that caps the fourth floor.

The new top floor is a singular space that flows through the length of floor. Tall glass at either end takes in The Bay to the East and Twin Peaks to the West. This arrangement provides excellent solar exposures and orients to take advantage of prevailing breezes for passive heating and cooling.

Each house is related to its own outdoor environment. The façade composition includes screened decks — protected outdoor spaces. The downstairs apartment steps down, creating a double-height living space at garden level. The butterfly roof stretches and heightens at each end for more openness and light at the top floor. A den at the entry level doubles as an oversized landing; it’s a pause on the series of stairs that link everything.

These homes are connected but private, unified but distinct. Finishes were selected in the same way: to each one’s unique taste, but connected as a single design idea.

The most important concept is the relationship of the spaces — how they can flow as a series of connected public rooms, all the way from the backyard garden to roof terrace, or, close off and serve privately, each with a private outdoor space. It’s a seamless family experience with modern sensibilities.

Principal Architect: Ross Levy⁠ (Levy Art + Architecture)⁠
Project Architect: Michael Ageno (Levy Art + Architecture)⁠
Interior Architect / Designer: Frances Weiss⁠ (Levy Art + Architecture)⁠
Contractor: CBC Contractors
Photographer: Mikiko Kikuyama

Little Bear Pre-School

Full redesign of a creative-arts pre-school in the Oceanview neighborhood of San Francisco.

Principal Architect: Ross Levy⁠ (Levy Art + Architecture)⁠
Project Architect: Patrick Donato (Levy Art + Architecture)⁠
Interior Architect / Designer: Frances Weiss⁠ (Levy Art + Architecture)⁠

Mera House

Mera House Living Room

A new San Francisco family home was born out of a house Levy Art + Architecture designed many years ago. As houses change hands over time, requirements evolve and families grow. As functionality and needs merge into more rooms within the same square footage, increased natural light, and new designs are born within the same space. Having previously designed this house for a different client, it was a refreshing experience to return to it for a new client and vision. Bernal Heights is a fast-growing family neighborhood and this project is a true expression of this phenomenon. Built on bedrock, it commands 360-degree views from the roof deck, accessible via a bespoke spiral staircase. The main floor has double height peaked ceilings and an open plan living space which leads into the kitchen. Access to the outside lower deck is facilitated with an easily foldable and seamless multipanel glass door system. All the features contribute to full daylight exposure throughout the day.

Architect: Ross Levy⁠ (Levy Art + Architecture)⁠
Project Team: Michael Ageno, Sonja Navin (Levy Art + Architecture)⁠
Interior Architect / Designer: Frances Weiss⁠ (Levy Art + Architecture)⁠
Contractor: Blain Burke GC
Photographer:  JP Defaut

Bernice Place

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Photographer: Mariko Reed
Architect: Ross Levy (Levy Art + Architecture)
Interior Designer: Frances Weiss (Levy Art + Architecture)

“Ice houses” were common in turn of the century San Francisco. Ice was harvested from lakes in The Sierra Nevada in winter and trucked to “cold” facilities in The City to provide an early form of refrigeration for the burgeoning metropolis. These structures were made of concrete, cast and layered with cork and bitumen to provide an insulated and water resistant shell. Into this historic envelope, we were commissioned to create a contemporary living space. The primary challenge was the depth of the floor plate and extremely limited amounts of natural light and air. The primary opportunity was the archaeology, the dis-assembly of the structure and discovery of concealed surfaces and material textures that informed our design.

For this project we designed, primarily, by removing. The building had been converted to “lofts” in the late nineteen nineties, but the ground floor had been used as a commercial space. Converting this level for habitation, our strategy was to expose the historical structure and to celebrate the industrial architecture. Flooring and wall coverings were removed to reveal sublime textures and monumental, concrete columns.   These were integrated into the space planning and (literally) highlighted as focal points in key areas.

This is particularly true in the master suite, a windowless cavern that benefits from up-lighting on the wall surface to create a sense of interest and expanse. This area is so deeply buried in the floor plan that fresh air had to be supplied mechanically. IN spite of this, the master bath is an open “airy” space that includes the specialty, illuminated walls and in a generous area that is rarely afforded in the City.

In the long, passage leading to the master suite, glass block walls borrow limited natural light from the garage that is enhanced with interior flood-lights to mimic daylight and create a sense of place for the bedroom and den.   The guest room is defined by corner sliding doors that open the box to accept light from the street and break down the rectilinear form.

The main living volume, two stories tall, was the easiest to envision. Stripping sheetrock we revealed sixteen foot tall, roughly formed, concrete columns and allowed their mass and rhythm to define the space. The kitchen sits, alter-like, at the south end of this space, bright blue and beckoning as a point of focus and inhabitation. All told, we have created an integrated series of spaces that are warm and comfortable in this once cold environment.

Architect: Ross Levy⁠ (Levy Art + Architecture)⁠
Interior Architect / Designer: Frances Weiss⁠ (Levy Art + Architecture)⁠
Photographer: Mariko Reed

Zero Energy House

ZeroNRG 08

This project aims to be the first residence in San Francisco that is completely self-powering and carbon neutral. The architecture has been developed in conjunction with the mechanical systems and landscape design, each influencing the other to arrive at an integrated solution. Working from the historic facade, the design preserves the traditional formal parlors transitioning to an open plan at the central stairwell which defines the distinction between eras. The new floor plates act as passive solar collectors and radiant tubing redistributes collected warmth to the original, North facing portions of the house. Careful consideration has been given to the envelope design in order to reduce the overall space conditioning needs, retrofitting the old and maximizing insulation in the new.

Nothing Never Looked So Good

Words by Joanne Furio and Lauren Murrow

An Edwardian Divorces PG&E

As the managing director of San Jose–based SunPower corporation, William Kelly unabashedly geeks out about solar panels. But when he set about expanding his family’s 1904 Noe Valley Edwardian, he took things a step further, getting “off the pipe”— eliminating the need for natural gas. Instead, a radiant system of water-filled tubing beneath the floorboards provides heat, and cooking is done on an induction stovetop. San Francisco firm Levy Art and Architecture expanded the home to 2,424 square feet, moving living areas to the south-facing rear of the house to harness the sunlight; a skylight over the glass-encased three-story staircase lets natural light reach from rooftop to basement. Meanwhile, SunPower’s photovoltaic solar panel system channels 7.6 kilowatts of electricity—enough to power the home and the family’s two cars. J.F.

Originally published in the April 2013 issue of San Francisco.

Publications:

ZeroNRG 25
ZeroNRG Floor Plan
Schematic of radiant heating system
Schematic of electric system
Schematic of water recycling system

Architect: Ross Levy⁠ (Levy Art + Architecture)⁠
Project Team: Karen Andersen (Levy Art + Architecture)⁠
MEP: Davis Energy Group⁠
Structural Engineer: SEMCO
Photographer: Ken Gutmaker

Potrero Office

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Located in a brick warehouse originally built in 1906 in San Francisco’s Westside Design District, the office is hybrid design-studio- art space. The plan for this floor is defined by the grid of old growth of 12×12, columns and beams. New walls and workspaces delineate a secondary layer within the original frame. Shades and sheens of white define the original wood structure, the historic brick walls and the inserted new walls. Desktops and furnishings are natural wood grains and the feature wall is living as the finishes become more animated.

The office space and adjacent art gallery SPACE 151,  was conceived with the conceptual framework of porosity in mind, and the conference room serves as the liaison between the two worlds of art and architecture. The new plan connects the space from front to back, making the most of the west window wall, and binding the studio to the gallery. This internal connection, via the dropped ceiling conference space, transitions from the natural conditions in the design studio to the controlled light of the gallery. The spaces and functions are joined and mutually inform each other.

The office is an example of adaptive reuse as the building was and currently still houses a paint factory.

Photography: Cesar Rubio

Laidley

Laidley 01

Completed in 2002, this new home in San Francisco is conceived as a series of interlocking forms, stepping up the hill and out of the earth to become a transparent glass form bound by the planar structure. This linear language informs the details throughout, appearing in the plan, elevations and custom furniture design. The street level entry opens to a sculpture court where an open, steel and concrete stairway leads to a terrace and the formal front door. All three living levels enjoy panoramic views of the city from the front and the serenity of a Japanese-inspired garden to the rear.

[Levy Art + Architecture] took on the challenges of a steep site and steep aspirations by homeowners inspired both by having once lived in an R.M. Schindler home and by their longtime friendship with New York set designer Tom John. “First,” said Ross Levy, “we had to distill one vision from these many visions.” The result mixes a view of the city through the glassed front of the house with a look through the glassed back at Japan, with a teahouse and garden perched atop the multi-level yard, and connects indoors to out with doors from the master suite to the garden and exhilarating terraces on each level of the front of the house, making the house feel much bigger than its 2,500 square feet.

Susan Fornoff in “Design Magicians”

Publications: • California Home + Design, September 2006, pp. 150-155: “Balancing Act” by Lydia Lee. • San Francisco Chronicle, September 14, 2005, pp. G1,G4: “Design Magicians” by Susan Fornoff. • AIA San Francisco Home Tours 2005.

In collaboration with Tom John, Interiors. Ken Gutmaker, Photography.

Trinity Abbey Retreat Center

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Trinity Abbey – Ogden, Utah

Working with The Trappist Monks at Trinity Abbey, Levy Art + Architecture has conceived a plan for a retreat center that honors the legacy of the founders of this historic site. Proceeds from the center will benefit the monastery so that it may remain as an intact acreage, and as an ongoing religious presence that the monks have devoted their lives to. The retreat is planned as an extension and abstraction of the courtyard cloister at the original monastery. We planned an “open” gesture on the site, a three sided courtyard that opens to the views across the agricultural foreground. The building form in section is a similar “opening” of the closed, barrel vault form that defines the chapel. The result is an “open” and continuous curvilinear form which speaks both to the historic context and the new, secular addition.