This project entailed a full interior model of a four level Edwardian house in San Francisco's Noe Valley neighborhood. A previous remodel had already removed the historic interior trim and ornament these houses often feature. An awkwardly tall and vacuous existing entrance foyer led us to bridge across this space with one of two home office / studio spaces, and bring a more intimate scale to the entry experience.
The name of this project - Borrowed light House - highlights the main driving concept: tapping into the house's existing skylights and discreetly adding new ones, which with a requested slight increase in internal program, opens up strategic opportunities for allowing some of the internal spaces to borrow daylight from one to another.
Built-in storage cabinets at the entry fold into an existing bay window. Drawer and door pulls are detailed as quarter round cutouts.
Wood paneling draws the eye upwards to a pair of the borrowed-light skylights. While the new Corian-wrapped stair offers a crisp, bright sculptural counterpoint to the honey toned oak woodwork
The studio at the entrance level is screened via fluted glass skiing doors, creating another instance of borrowed light. Adjacent to this space is a powder room and small bar.
The central switchback stair, situated at the heart of the house, incorporates a window at one landing which gives a glimpse of the stair below leading from the street to a lower level guest unit.
Heading upstairs brings you to a family room and the upper home office/studio space, screened through a frosted glass doorway.
Within this upper level beneath the gable roof, which had the peak clipped off in a former attic to accommodate lateral structural ties, we restructured the ridge to create the crisp peaked ceiling of the gable roof spanning the house lengthwise, front to back. This linear space frames views to the north toward downtown San Francisco. On either side of this space are instances of borrowed views and daylight from twin pairs of skylights that flank the gable.
Built-in desk and storage is situated along the long sides, while a new peaked frosted glass door separates the two rooms at this upper level.
The Living / Dining / Kitchen space is configured as a Great Room facing northerly city views, lined with both flat and fluted wood paneling and cabinetry. Here daylight is borrowed from an existing lightwell next to the neighboring house, and around the sides of the family room above.
Looking up, the ceiling over the Dining space houses one of a pair of new skylights flanking the family room above. The rhythm of roof rafters across the opening filters the daylight to the space below.
In the lower level quest unit, a yoga room doubles as a guest bedroom, borrowing daylight through fluted glass wood sliding doors from an adjacent living and dining space. A sauna / spa is also incorporated at this level, which opens to the backyard.
The logic of interlocking spaces within Borrowed Light House is reflected in the detail juncture between the Corian-lined central stair and Oak portal to the Great room beyond.
