Garden Views and Forest Paths | Double R Country House

Located on a plot surrounded by residential buildings, schools, and apartments, this vertical residence was carefully…

Jonathan Feldman and his wife Lisa Lougee were determined to create a contemporary, sustainable, and functional home for their family within the building constraints of urban San Francisco. The original structure, built in 1905, was a New England brick and shingle style residence sitting next to an overgrown lot. It was given the tongue-in-cheek name The Farm, due to the rarity of backyards and outdoor living spaces in the city. “We fell in love with the farmhouse charm of the home” says Jonathan, “Lisa and I enjoyed imagining how the house must have looked out in the countryside of San Francisco in the 1900’s; we started joking around and calling it The Farm and it stuck!” To further the play on the home’s name, the Feldman family often lovingly refers to their band of rescue animals as their “flock.” In order to transform the older house into an outstandingly sustainable, modern home, the structure was essentially rebuilt from the inside out. The clients both loved the character and grace of the older home and wanted to preserve its visual continuity; their excitement towards the historic home combined with their conflicting design styles ultimately directed the course of the home’s restoration. Before the ambitious remodel, the house was a closed-off box. The new design opened the floor plan, flooding the interiors with natural light through a new central stair topped with expansive skylights. The basement was also transformed to include what is now a usable rear yard & deck. The house achieved LEED Platinum with an abundance of sustainable features, many of which are subtly hidden. Two types of water re-use systems were implemented on the property; rain water and grey water harvesting, with the tanks concealed below the rear deck. An HRV (Heat Recovery Ventilation) system provides the home with clean air without energy loss. All materials are sustainably sourced and non-toxic and the house also features water and electricity monitoring, easily accessible by panels throughout the home and smartphone technology. By striving for excellence in sustainable architecture while incorporating the design aesthetics of all members involved, the team for The Farm has been able to create an elegant structure perfectly fitting for unique and forward-thinking San Francisco.

Right now, the logistics of “going back to normal” are a mystery. We asked some prominent voices to give us their predictions of what we can expect when the worst is over.

Set amidst a volcanic boulder field in a pine and fir forest, Creek House is a family retreat that inhabits an existing outcrop clearing at the edge of the spring fed Martis Creek. Near the base of Lookout Mountain at Northstar California Resort, the house is conceived in plan as three directional bars that slide between and alongside the boulders and trees. The largest contains the main living areas and sleeping quarters. A margin sized bar houses the entry and support spaces and connects the third bar that contains a tandem, drive-through garage to the house. A south facing, 140-foot long, insulated concrete wall demarks the spaces longitudinally and situates the house in the mountainous terrain.   A shift of the major bar to the west over the natural downslope of the site earns two requested rock gardens. The garden to the east is open to the sky and built into the void left by the displacement, with building height concrete walls retained to provide privacy for the master bedroom.  The gravel surface, set with site native basalt stones and framed with water, can be viewed only through a low, three-dimensional glass box that allows the garden to penetrate the room. A rectangular basin captures snow melt to create a protective and ephemeral pool of water around this most private area of the house. The second garden to the west lives under the cantilevered house that shields the lower level from the west sun and contains the largest boulders of the site. A glazed hallway floor above reveals a dramatic drop in the topography and car sized boulders. At the top of the slope, the one-story horizontal form presents a closed and secure face to the northwestern street exposure. Fire resistive steel rain screens and tempered glazing inhabit the territories earned by the concrete wall. The mass heavy house is designed as a long thin rectangle that faces the sun to maximize solar exposure during winter and minimize heat gain from the west and east in summer. The house is cooled by prevailing breezes that flow up and through the house from the west. Radiantly heated bluestone floors, solar assisted domestic hot water and LED electric light further reduce energy demands.