New feature in Architectural Digest

Levy Art + Architecture’s latest luxury residential project has earned a coveted spot in Architectural Digest (AD).

The collaboration between Ross Levy, client Yishai Lerner, and AD100 designer Charles de Lisle resulted in the transformation of a quaint two-story fixer-upper into a stunning contemporary residence perched atop a hill in central San Francisco, boasting breathtaking 270-degree views of the bay.

From the seamless integration of architectural details to the infusion of vibrant, Northern California-inspired elements, this project exemplifies the seamless fusion of modern aesthetics and functional elegance. Levy Art + Architecture added extra square footage, and also engineered the home’s smallest details—for instance, installing invisible air conditioning vents in the seam of the living room’s gabled ceiling, and custom-designing the winding iron staircase so it appears to be floating independently of the walls. “I’ve built software my whole life,” Yishai explains. “So I’m always thinking about the user experience.”

Notable luxury features include tall ceilings, uninterrupted planes of glass, a home office, home gym, an Alaskan cedar–lined sauna, and a Redwood hot tub, custom console in the entranceway, creamy Nordic-inspired Douglas Fir wall paneling in the TV room, Ceppo de Gre Stone in the guest suite (the very same that clads the gray facades of Milanese apartment buildings), a dark purple Blue Star kitchen range with brass details, and a custom kitchen island by furniture designer Martino Gamper.

Learn more about the architectural features and design journey of this remarkable home in the latest feature on Architectural Digest.

Read the rest of the article in Architectural Digest here…


Architecture Team: Levy Art & Architecture (Karen Andersen, Shirin Monshipouri, Andrew Sparks, Michael Ageno, Sonja Navin, Ross Levy) @levy_aa
Stair Fabricator: Melissa MacDonald⁠
Furniture Maker: Martino Gamper @martinogamper⁠
Interior Design: Charles Delisle @charlesdelisleoffice⁠
Contractor: Blair Burke GC⁠
Site Superintendent: Brad Lord⁠
Project Manager: Nicole Barsetti⁠
Structural Engineer: Daedalus Engineering @daedalusstructuralengineering⁠
Clients: Yishai and Sabrina Lerner⁠
Phototographers: Eric Petschek @ericpetschek and Karen Andersen @almost.elfish

Energizing architecture: how to build your self-powering dream home

ZeroNRG 25

Is your custom home one that you can live in comfortably and feel good about?

In 2010, we completed construction of the first completely self-powering house in San Francisco. That’s right: 100% energy neutral.

Today, more than a decade later, we wish that all homes would be built this way.

Here’s how we did it, and what you can do to improve your own project in a move toward a net-zero (or better!) future.

1) START WITH SOLAR

An eight-kilowatt solar array, grid-connected and net-metered, produces all power necessary for domestic and transportation purposes without any on-site carbon emissions.  The owner, who had been working in the solar industry for over twenty years at the time of construction, was committed to “getting off the pipe” …as in: a house without a gas meter.

2) ALIGN WITH THE SUN

The self-powering home design includes a structure with ample roof area for the panels and a highly-efficient envelope. The floor plan sees open living spaces at the rear of the house, directly adjacent to the garden.  These rooms employ ample, south-facing glazing for maximum solar gain.

A diagram of the electric system and a photo of two electric cars charging in the garage
3) USE PASSIVE RADIANT HEATING

On mild days, exposed concrete floors with radiant tubes convey passively-collected heat to the north-facing portions of the house via a small recirculating pump.  We specified Marvin wood windows with High-R-Tripane glazing and sprayed, Biobase, soy foam insulation for R-19 walls and an R-40 roof.  This creates a tight enclosure while also accounting for existing, historic “blind walls” and the inherent problems with air and moisture infiltration that they present.

A three-story stairwell topped with operable skylights is a dramatic vertical space and creates a heat stack, providing all cooling necessary for the moderate San Francisco climate.

The mechanical systems are based on the “all electric” concept.  In the active heating mode, a 2/3 ton electric heat pump provides hot water for the floor system.  A second heat pump provides domestic hot water for showers, laundry etc.

A diagram of the self-powering home featuring radiant heat in the floorboards and throughout the house, alongside a photo of the system located in the garage
4) CHOOSE SMART FIXTURES & APPLIANCES

LED fixtures and high-efficiency appliances lower the total electrical load, while a plug-in hybrid charges in off-hours to balance production and consumption cycles with the net metering approach.  

5) RECLAIM WATER

A gray water reclamation system provides irrigation for a shared backyard vegetable garden and for drought-tolerant landscape features – both at the yard and the street.  

A diagram of the water recycling system  in this self-powering home, shown alongside a photo of the backyard garden and irrigation

GOING FURTHER

This self-powering home project was cutting edge a decade ago. It represents more than a “green” structure. We work at the level of lifestyle: considering transportation, food production and community in this urban setting in a holistic approach while also serving the specific needs and desires of the homeowner.

Being able to “divorce” the local power company and lower your utility bills is a nice perk, of course.

But being environmentally sustainable is just the beginning; this is now our status quo.

Our latest thoughts on the sustainability may be found in our manifesto about modern architecture.

We are designing the future of buildings that not only maintain, but also give back to the environment.

If this resonates with you, let’s talk: book a 20min consultation to talk about the dreams and aspirations you have for your project.


About this Project

Principal Architect: Ross Levy, Levy Art + Architecture 
Architecture Design Team: Karen Andersen and Michael Ageno, Levy Art + Architecture 
Structural Engineer: Shaun Monyihan, SEMCO
Mechanical Engineer: Bill Dakin, Davis Energy Group

This project was Fine Homebuilding’s “Remodel of the Year” in 2013 and also appeared in the April 2013 print edition of San Francisco magazine in “Nothing Never Looked so Goodby Joanne Furio and Lauren Murrow.

Row House Recharged --- comp of Fine Homebuilding magazine featuring a two-page spread about the self-powering home

About Levy Art + Architecture

Levy Art + Architecture firm is an interdisciplinary studio operating at the intersection of architecture, environmentalism and art. Our work is inspired by a commitment to research and sustainability as a basis for the design process. The knowledge derived from this study is embodied in form, structure and light. It defines spaces that transform our daily experience and influence the way we live in urban and natural environments.

    Contact Us

    “Hermitage Russian Hill” featured in Modern Luxury Magazine

    A page from the spread in Modern Luxury Magazine featuring Levy Art + Architecture's "Hermitage Russian Hill" project

    Levy Art + Architecture’s recently-completed luxury residential design was featured in the nation’s largest luxury media outlet.

    Sky High

    by MAILE PINGEL, PHOTOGRAPHS BY CHRISTOPHER STARK

    A trio of talents breathe new life into a dated condo atop San Francisco’s Russian Hill.

    “This is a one-of-a-kind apartment, but it was a bit of an unorthodox approach for me,” says San Francisco interior designer Eche Martinez of the Russian Hill condominium he recently completed with architect Ross Levy and fellow designer Cindy Bayon. “I got to come in after the dusty part of the project and bring it to life,” he says. The condo, located in a landmark building, was nearing the end of its two-year renovation by Levy and Bayon when the owners, newlyweds, brought in Martinez, whom the wife had met through a mutual friend, to take the project across the finish line. “Cindy and Ross did an incredible job of layering natural materials and beautiful finishes for an eclectic, quirky Bay Area aesthetic, and it was an impeccable job by the builder, Justine Sears,” he explains. “My role was really more of an art director.”

    “It’s a modern space within a traditional setting,” explains Levy, a longtime friend of the husband. The original floor plan was a series of formal rooms, so the architect opened the space to create a contemporary flow that would also establish a gallery-like setting for the couple’s art collection. Working with project architect Patrick Donato, Levy rearranged the entry sequence to take advantage of spectacular downtown and Bay Bridge views. Original doors and windows couldn’t be changed, so they were painted white to disappear into the walls. Likening the condo’s new flow of rooms to a renovated historic Italian palazzo, Levy then added subtle definition to the great room by creating varying ceiling designs over the living, dining and family room areas.

    Read the rest of the article in Modern Luxury Magazine here…

    Architecture: Levy Art & Architecture (Patrick Donato and Ross Levy) (@levy_aa)
    Contractor: Moroso Construction (Justine Sears)
    Interior Designers: Cindy Bayon & Eche Martinez
    Photographer: Christopher Stark (@christopherstark)

    Levy Art + Architecture’s “Great Highway” Featured in Dwell

    Cover of the article in Dwell showing clerestory windows with a view of the Pacific Ocean

    We overhauled a Marina-style house on Ocean Beach, allowing our client to keep an eye on the surf in the Pacific Ocean. The editors at Dwell wrote the following feature about the project:


    A SURFER’S SAN FRANCISCO HOME HELPS KEEP AN EYE ON THE WAVES

    Words by MELISSA DALTON, Photographs by JOE FLETCHER for Dwell (read the original here)

    If you’ve walked around San Francisco, chances are you’ve passed a Marina-style house. After all, the style originated in the city’s Marina District. “They were simple houses: one story over a garage,” says architect Ross Levy, who overhauled a specimen on Ocean Beach last year.

    Although the house faces the Pacific Ocean, much of its outlook was compromised by poor window placement and an ad-hoc addition. “Sometime in the ’60s, someone plunked a third floor on top of the house, and they really did plunk it down,” says Levy. “It was like someone airlifted some plywood and nailed it together. And then you had a third floor.” 

    This meant that the resulting interior floor plan was “strangely arranged” and not conducive for the home’s most recent owner, a passionate surfer drawn to its proximity to the water. Levy sums up the client’s brief: “See the waves from wherever you are. That was the program.”

    The home’s existing layout clustered the living spaces on the second floor— there, the front door opened into the living room, and the staircase was crammed into a narrow passage. The bedrooms were then spread between the two floors, and there was an ocean-facing deck at the third level, but the view on one side was blocked by the house. 

    For the remodel, the team flipped the floor plan, relocating the communal spaces to a gently expanded third floor. Dubbed the “lookout,” that level is now filled with natural light and has an enviable vantage point of the water. The designers reduced the number of bedrooms to three and grouped them all together on the second floor. 

    As the architects started cataloging the available space during the preliminary design phase, they made a happy discovery: “There was this cavity between the second and third floors in the building that we didn’t fully understand until we started measuring and tearing stuff apart,” says Levy. “That gave us all kinds of design opportunities that we hadn’t really counted on.”

    The team anchored the new design with a bold, sculptural staircase treatment, wherein the open oak tread appears suspended on a screen of steel rods. The delicate treatment allows light to flow down from the top floor. “One of the perennial problems with the reverse floor plan remodel is, how do you get the people from the bottom to the top?” says Levy. “So, we made this floating, rod-suspended stair to be as light as air, and to really draw your eyes straight up.” 

    Now, the home is more in sync with its surroundings—and even better, the homeowner’s lifestyle. Although the family only moved 20 minutes away from their last home in Bernal Heights, being this much closer to the water makes all the difference when taking advantage of good conditions. “For surfers, they can look at the surf report and [check the] cameras online,” says Levy, “but there’s a lot to be said for being there.”

    Architecture: Levy Art & Architecture (Melissa Todd, Shirin Monshipouri, and Ross Levy) (@levy_aa)
    Builder: BBGC, Blair Burke General Contractor
    Structural Engineer: FTF Engineering
    Lighting Design: Levy Art & Architecture
    Interior Design: Levy Art & Architecture (Frances Weiss)
    Cabinetry Design/Installation: Eckhoff Furniture Manufacturing
    Permit Consulting: Quickdraw
    Metal: Local Metal

    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.

    Natural Discourse presents “Consider the Oyster”

    Rendering by Art Zendarski

    Following the recent reestablishment of seven acres of tidal marshland connected to San Francisco Bay, natural habitat is recreated, and native species — particularly oysters — are able to return to their homes.

    Forest/Oyster #22 David Janesko 2015

    Working in conjunction with the Presidio Trust and Natural Discourse, Levy Art + Architecture is proud to announce our upcoming art exhibit, “Consider the Oyster: Art, Science & Culture.”

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

    The art and gallery will be visible from the street where anyone can view it, 24 hours a day, beginning Saturday, February 27th at Levy Art + Architecture 2401 Bryant St, San Francisco.

    RSVP for the opening night outdoor reception on LinkedIn.


    About the Quartermaster Reach Project

    In December 2020, the Presidio Trust unveiled to visitors seven acres of re-established tidal marshland and a new pedestrian trail near San Francisco Bay.

    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 shallow tidal estuary is the natural habitat for oysters that were once prolific in the San Francisco Bay.

    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. The site will allow visitors to enjoy an intimate experience of nature just minutes from downtown.

    A high-tech home for the oysters: resin-cast substrates

    Featured Art: Oyster Habitats Designed by Architecture Faculty Margaret Ikeda & Evan Jones at California College of the Arts (CCA)

    Another area where art + architecture meet with environmentalism are the parametric 3-dimensional oyster substrates designed and fabricated in the Architectural Ecologies Lab at CCA. These are designed to provide a habitat for oyster growth at the newly-opened Quartermaster Reach.

    Featured Art: Oyster Shell Pinhole Cameras by David Janesko

    David’s pinhole cameras are constructed from nature, in order to photograph nature. He turned Pacific Oyster shells into pinhole cameras that captured images of their forest surroundings. Read more about the project as featured on Smithsonian Magazine. See more photos of these incredible oysters-turned-photograph on David’s website.

    Featured Art: Consider the Oyster by Chris Kallmyer

    A two-channel video documenting place, culture, and a window into oyster farming in West Marin. It is based off of three basic facts:

    1. Oysters reflect the place in which they are made. This recording documents the process of farming oysters with field recordings and two-channel video.
    2. Oysters are equally, a grounded and celestial food: flavored by the tides, created by the rotation of the sun and moon. They put us in touch with our own position in relation to movement of our planet. Two drones are sounded to represent the sun and the moon, proportional to their gravitational pull on the tidal waters.
    3. Oysters are bivalves, and so is a pump organ. Chris performs on a pump organ throughout the piece as a musical analogue for our beloved oyster.

    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.

    Art + Discourse

    We have a long and extremely productive working relationship with Natural Discourse, teaming up to work on a series of environmentally-focused art productions in our galleries and around California.

    Natural Discourse is an ongoing series of symposia, publications and site-specific art installations that explore the connections between art, culture, science and site. It is curated by Shirley Alexandra Watts.

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

    ​​​​​​​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.

    “De Haro” featured in The Looker Magazine

    HOME DESIGN: SUMMER 2015

    AERIE

    BRINGING THE PARTY HOME

    A POTRERO HILL RELIC GETS A MAKEOVER IN NEON AND GLITTER.

    Words by LAUREN MURROW

    IN THE KITCHEN OF Heather Forbes and Steve Sacks’s Potrero Hill home, color-changing LEDs trim the counters and a disco ball twirls overhead. A new Dutch-inspired electric hoist on the front of the house is capable of raising 880 pounds— “a lot of beer and party supplies,” jokes their architect, as well as groceries and laundry. Traditional barstools have been swapped out for custom wooden swings. “We discovered swings like these in a bar in Tulum 15 years ago,” remembers Forbes, “and we never really forgot about it.” Their kids—Cameron, 11, and Jasmine, 9—eat breakfast at the counter every morning, gliding to and fro between bites.

    Clearly, this is a house that was built to party. That comes as no surprise to those who know the couple: he a former DJ and bar owner and she a print-loving interior designer. “We wanted a home with a sense of humor,” says Forbes, founder of Sayde Mark Designs. And from the original glitter art to the octopus-print wallpaper, self-serious it’s not.

    Built in 1903 and bought in 2001, the original house was dark and closed off, with no view to speak of. So the couple enlisted Ross Levy of Levy Art & Architecture to blow the roof off, topping their abode with a new third floor and tacking on a trio of terraces. The living room adjoins the grill-equipped roof deck through sliding glass doors. In the bathroom, a pair of outward-facing French doors create the effect of an indoor-outdoor shower, where one can enjoy views of Sutro Tower while they shampoo.

    As a finishing touch, the family christened their new home with a fresh coat of accent paint: lemon yellow in front, hot pink in back—which is visible from the peak of Bernal Heights Park. “People either love the paint job or they say nothing,” laughs Forbes. “But who cares? We think it’s fun.”

    IMAGE CAPTIONS

    1. Owner Steve Sacks and his kids, Jasmine and Cameron, in their kitchen. Architect Ross Levy wrapped the living and dining area in a wave of French oak.
    2. The custom stairwell is flooded with light by an east-facing window.
    3. The family gravitates toward neon hues. “This is one of those houses that’s a true expression of the people living in it,” says Levy.
    4. Levy designed a trio of decks in back. “Every floor has an outdoor element,” he says.
    5. Even in a house surrounded by stunning views, this windowless halfbathroom is a main attraction. “I looked through hundreds of wallpaper swatches,” says owner Heather Forbes. “But as soon as I saw this, I was sold.”
    6. The east-facing office connects to the open kitchen.
    7. “We used to cram dinner parties around a 4-person table,” says Forbes. This one, from HD Buttercup, seats 14.

    View the original magazine spread. View the original in plaintext.

    Zero Energy House hits Asia

    Blog FuturArc JanFeb2013cover

    Zero Energy House was published in FuturARC (an Asian Green Architecture magazine) early in 2013, in an article written by Jalel Sager.  The article explores the California codes, the most stringent in the US (probably the world). Here Jalel finds several developments that go further than most; their owners speak of sharing their abode with the planet. The battle between the personal and the political is fought on the fringes of mainstream Green.

    Here is a PDF of the article

    Green California Article from Jan-Feb FutureArc