Hollywood Hills House
Los Angeles, CA, 2019
LAKE
Oakland, CA, 2021
forest <> house
Northern California, 2015
Radhaus
San Francisco, CA, 2018
Farmers First
Rural Alabama, 2022 - Ongoing
Safe Passage Park
Tenderloin District, San Francisco, 2021
Coffee + Juice Kiosks
Fremont, CA, 2021
Urban Alchemy Oasis
San Francisco, CA, 2022
Plant Trees
Planet Earth, ongoing
Intentional Shift
Bayview-Hunters Point, CA, 2022
Valley Ridge Residence
San Francisco, CA, 2021
PROXY
San Francisco, CA, 2011 - Ongoing
The French Laundry
Yountville, CA, 2015, 2018
JMS Annex
Berkeley, CA, 2013
Kindred
Various, 2016
Hunters Point Shoreline
San Francisco, CA, 2017
2214
Berkeley, CA, 2015 - 2017
North Showrooms
Brooklyn, NY + Toronto, ON, 2018
Pier 24 Photography
San Francisco, CA, 2008
NOW Hunters Point
San Francisco, CA, 2013 - 2022
CHROMA
Tucson, AZ, 2020
West Oakland Gateway
Oakland, CA, 2016
The Octavia Project
San Francisco, CA, 2021
Aether Apparel
San Francisco, CA, 2013
Trap Table
Berkeley, CA, 2013
Octavia M+N
San Francisco, CA, 2005, 2020
All projects
project
year
typology
location
status
Hollywood Hills House
2019
Residential
Los Angeles, CA
completed
Set on a rare, large vacant site in the Hollywood Hills, this 3,750-square-foot house is conceived as a series of experiential “chambers,” rooms and outdoor spaces, each designed to heighten their spatial, material and chromatic elements.
LAKE
2021
Hospitality, Public Space, Retail, Cultural, Adaptive Reuse
Oakland, CA
design
LAKE envisions a thriving urban promenade filled with Black-owned and Black-centered businesses occupying flexible indoor and outdoor spaces that support gathering, shopping, experiencing, and celebrating Oakland’s vibrant community and culture.
The Social Network
2012
Hospitality, Adaptive Reuse
Bay Area, CA
completed
For The Social Network we designed an open and lively 28,000 square foot cafeteria that can accommodate up to 3,500 employees and guests for any given meal. The cafeteria doubles as a secure auditorium for weekly "all hands" presentations and global simulcasts. Independent from the main cafeteria, we designed the campus's burger shack and pizza restaurant, adding to the neighborhood feel of The Social Network grounds and complementing the playfulness and casual work environment.
forest <> house
2015
Residential
Northern California
completed
Our long-time clients sought to create a private retreat hidden in the forested hills of Northern California, a house where an extended community of family, friends, and colleagues could gather.
Radhaus
2018
Hospitality, Adaptive Reuse
San Francisco, CA
completed
The proprietors envisioned Radhaus as a contemporary gathering place pairing the convivial, communal essence of a German beer hall with contemporary interpretations of traditional Bavarian cuisine.
Farmers First
2022 - Ongoing
Agriculture, Adaptive Reuse, Food System Transformation
Rural Alabama
ongoing
Farmers First reimagines our food system in a way that centers the needs of farmers and the environment, converting former poultry production facilities into greenhouses that grow food efficiently, year-round, and at a low cost.
Safe Passage Park
2021
Activation, Public Space
Tenderloin District, San Francisco
completed
Safe Passage Park (sPark) is the first major project underway as part of TL Transforms, an initiative to build community power and agency through an emergent engagement process resulting in physical streetscape improvements and programming throughout the Tenderloin.
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Clipper Street Residence
2007
Residential
San Francisco, CA
completed
In 2005, a design savvy skateboard couple enlisted ENVELOPE to renovate a tattered Victorian duplex — two stacked flats with a typical series of dark, cellular rooms — in San Francisco’s Noe Valley neighborhood. The renovation design conceives of the home as two distinct worlds sculpted to fit two uses: a surprisingly eclectic upstairs flat for living, and a more matter-of-fact lower level creative studio that opens up to the garden.
Coffee + Juice Kiosks
2021
Hospitality
Fremont, CA
completed
Part of the office campus dubbed "The Farm", the Coffee and Juice Kiosks offer employees and visitors alike a chance to gather and unwind in two unique, vibrant settings.
Urban Alchemy Oasis
2022
Activation, Public Space, Adaptive Reuse
San Francisco, CA
completed
Working closely with the Urban Alchemy team in San Francisco, we transformed a blighted city corner into a park where adults can rest, play games, and enjoy free coffee, tea, and water in a safe, clean environment.
Park Tower
2018
Activation, Public Space
San Francisco, CA
design
An exploration of public space, Park Tower is a dynamic lighting installation attuned to daily rhythms, its program and connections ebb and flow, day to night, weekday to weekend, through a variety of modular interventions and lighting engagements.
Plant Trees
ongoing
Activation, Public Space
Planet Earth
ongoing
As a gift to our beloved Earth and to us all, we initiated planting hundreds of trees to start out each year!
Intentional Shift
2022
Aside, Cultural, Interim Use
Bayview-Hunters Point, CA
completed
To celebrate a decade of activation at NOW Hunters Point, ENVELOPE and Studio O partnered with Kristin Damrow & Company to create a site-specific, community-driven dance performance and art installation called Intentional Shift.
Valley Ridge Residence
2021
Residential
San Francisco, CA
completed
Challenged with taking a five story spec home and infusing a feel of elegance and the charm of a classic San Francisco Victorian, ENVELOPE worked closely with the talented interior design team at the Office of Charles de Lisle to create a family home and sanctuary with the dual purpose of hosting events at a variety of scales.
PROXY
2011 - Ongoing
Activation, Public Space, Cultural, Adaptive Reuse
San Francisco, CA
ongoing
PROXY is a temporary open space activating two vacant parcels in the heart of San Francisco’s Hayes Valley neighborhood.
The French Laundry
2015, 2018
Hospitality
Yountville, CA
completed
To mark its 20th anniversary The French Laundry undertook an extensive renovation of the renowned restaurant’s historic property.
JMS Annex
2013
Office, Cultural, Adaptive Reuse
Berkeley, CA
completed
When an industrial building near their Berkeley office became available, the creative agency John McNeil Studio asked Envelope to turn it into the ultimate flex space: a place for video shoots, lectures, strategy sessions, art openings, and much more.
Kindred
2016
Aside, Fabrication, Public Space
Various
completed
Kindred is a re-configurable, re-deployable planter-seating system composed of three modules and designed to add visual and functional dimension to multi-purpose open space.
Hunters Point Shoreline
2017
Public Space
San Francisco, CA
completed
The Hunters Point Shoreline is a new public open space born out of a far-reaching public, interim use, and community engagement strategy for the former Hunters Point Power Plant site.
2214
2015 - 2017
Aside, Exhibition, Cultural
Berkeley, CA
completed
2214 is a curatorial overlay to our practice, an experiment exploring the possibilities that arise when practitioners from divergent areas of interest come together to consider a set of common questions.
North Showrooms
2018
Retail
Brooklyn, NY + Toronto, ON
completed
For the launch of Focals, a new line of smart glasses, North asked for a scalable system that could translate a complex customer journey into a gracious, intuitive experience. Adaptability was key.
Pier 24 Photography
2008
Cultural, Adaptive Reuse
San Francisco, CA
completed
The Pilara Foundation chose to create a home for its critically acclaimed photography collection in an unlikely location: a historic timber-framed warehouse perched over the San Francisco Bay.
NOW Hunters Point
2013 - 2022
Activation, Public Space
San Francisco, CA
completed
NOW Hunters Point takes the practice of urban activation and applies it as an iterative, community-led visioning process to the Pacific Gas and Electric Hunters Point site. In the 10 years that NOW Hunters Point had been operational, it hosted over 216 activations (from job training to movie nights, to even a circus) and engaged with over 30,000 visitors.
CHROMA
2020
Mixed Use, Retail, Residential
Tucson, AZ
ongoing
CHROMA, a new mixed use development in the heart of Midtown Tucson, brings a dynamic infusion of commercial, office, residential, and community uses to a changing neighborhood.
West Oakland Gateway
2016
Activation, Public Space, Adaptive Reuse
Oakland, CA
completed
Situated at the gateway to West Oakland, this project imagines a vibrant future for a former pipeworks factory.
The Octavia Project
2021
Activation, Public Space, Cultural
San Francisco, CA
ongoing
The Octavia Project seeks to create people-centered spaces where people gather, form new connections, and develop new ideas and relationships. Our vision of the project revolves around three core concepts; Pathway (Marking Memory), Forum (Building Community) and Gateway (Dreaming the Future).
Aether Apparel
2013
Retail, Interim Use
San Francisco, CA
completed
Aether Apparel, an online retailer that specializes in design-conscious technical outerwear, chose our PROXY project in Hayes Valley as the site of its first stand-alone store. Aether wanted a striking physical presence with the unconventionality of a pop-up venue. They were drawn to our use of shipping containers at PROXY as highly customized modular units that are built to be durable rather than disposable, bold instead of drab.
Trap Table
2013
Aside, Fabrication
Berkeley, CA
completed
Designed, prototyped and fabricated in our shop, the Trap Table leverages the tessellating ability of half hexagons to create a system capable of a multitude of configurations.
Octavia M+N
2005, 2020
Residential
San Francisco, CA
ongoing
Set along Octavia Boulevard, lots M+N are among the most challenging of the 22 development parcels created when the Central Freeway was removed. The 120-foot-wide parcels are just 18 feet deep, defying typical housing configurations.
Victoria
2014
Residential
Berkeley, CA
completed
At first glance, a run-down Victorian seemed like an unlikely home for the founder of John McNeil Studio and his family.
Expanded Field
2011
Aside, Exhibition, Cultural
San Francisco, CA
completed
Expanded Field, the book, and the installation from which it evolved, is both an expression of our passion for installation work and an exploration of the overlapping territories of contemporary practice.
Los Altos Residence
2000
Residential
Los Altos, CA
completed
Designed for a contractor and his wife, who were living in a San Francisco loft but wanted to move to the Silicon Valley to be closer to their work, this house takes on the spatial and material qualities of the urban loft and exports them to the suburbs.
The generating idea for the house is the Japanese garden design strategy of shakkei, or borrowed landscape. The section and siting of the building work together to screen the suburban “middle ground,” pulling the distant views of the Santa Cruz Mountains into the fore. With this strategy, the distant landscape becomes the fourth wall of the primary living and sleeping spaces, blending domesticity with an ever-changing sense of nature. The interior space extends into the landscape through a wall of garage door bays that completely open the loft-like living space to the garden. By placing the hearth in the garden, the living space is re-centered within the garden itself.
The Los Altos House, urban in language and sensibility, both exists in a suburban context and actively erases this context by replacing the inhabitants’ glimpses of suburbia with views of the natural landscape. The created and borrowed garden provides a new context for the house: a simulated Arcadia situated in an American middle landscape.
CMY Saw Horses
2013
Aside, Furniture
Berkeley, CA
completed
CMY saw horse tables are available in cyan, magenta and yellow leg dip. Fabricated out of hickory hardwood, these saw horses pay homage to classic work-shop saw horses, but simplify and minimize joinery to emphasize the graphic quality of the iconic saw horse shape. Tables were designed and fabricated at ENVELOPE, in Berkeley, California. Limited production run. Please email info@envelopead.com for pricing and general inquiries. Local pick up required.
San Luis Road Residence
2008
Residential
Berkeley, CA
completed
A house for a structural engineer and his family in the Berkeley hills, the project expresses structural elegance in the cantilever of the new top floor master bedroom. The design seeks to open the spatial relationships to the surrounding site: to an entry courtyard at the front, to a garden at the base and the kitchen and to the expansive bay view at the back.
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Search Engine Coffee
2014
Hospitality
California
completed
ENVELOPE gets a lot of requests for shipping container design due to our wildly successful project PROXY in San Francisco. This project, a temporary coffee bar for a large tech company in Mountain View, started as one such inquiry. The client wanted the outdoor cafe to be inexpensive and quickly deployable. While a shipping container was suitable theoretically, onerous permitting restrictions pushed us to devise a different solution: the _dock. The _dock is a food+drink pavilion composed of sets of tubes and screens. The pavilion is activated by any food truck that docks, creating virtually limitless programming possibilities. A light blue ground graphic creates an intuitive queueing system while simultaneously defining the exterior space. The pavers were flipped over and the underside was painted to allow for an easy eventual dissolution of the space. Though _dock is currently a one-off installation, we designed it with a series of pavilions in mind that would share a formal language but wouldn’t formally be the same. The pavilion’s easily adaptable nature and cost-effectiveness add up to a prudent system for providing places of rest and refuge amidst the hustle and bustle of the company’s campus.
Washington Street Residence
2008
Residential
San Francisco, CA
completed
This home for an art collecting family was shaped by two primary design parameters: make no visible alterations to the house’s traditional front facade while transforming the interior into a modern open living space that integrates the client’s extensive collection of contemporary art. Through a careful coordination of artworks embedded within the architecture, the design seeks to create a heightened level of engagement by blurring the line between normal living and art experience.
Slow Food Nation - Coffee
2008
Hospitality, Cultural
San Francisco, CA
completed
The Coffee Pavilion at the Slow Food Nation Taste Hall is conceived of as a filter for experience. Three sheer fabric enclosed Coffee Halls remove the visitor from the activity of the larger event. These tasting chambers offer a more intimate taste experience and allow visitors to focus on the cup in their hand, the nuances of the brew, the discussion with an expert. Coffee experts serve a flight of three to four coffees over a 12 minute session, teaching the differences in region, quality and roasting techniques.
The pavilion design is framed by an ethic of reuse. Scaffold, traffic barriers, folding tables are all rented items that will continue to be reused long after this event. The sheer voile fabric will be donated to the CCA Fashion Design Department for use by their students. The coffee bars are structured by an assemblage of discarded chairs, which will be reconditioned after the event. Purchased materials are either sustainable in their production or will be repurposed as building materials. More finely constructed elements - the coffee bars - will be reused for future events.
Curators
Andrew Barnett, Ecco Caffe
Eileen Hassi, Ritual Coffee Roasters
Tony Konecny, tonx.org
Pizzeria Delfina California Street
2008
Hospitality
San Francisco, CA
completed
Inspired by a field trip to the birthplace of pizza, Delfina's pizzeria is an interpretation of the best of the Neapolitan Pizzerias, which are at once plain, urban and functional. A white-tiled floor and wainscot are a crisp textural container for the hickory bar and banquette, which bracket an all-stainless steel kitchen. Honed slate wall panels line the wall as you enter the space and display the changing fare of the day.
Pizzeria Delfina 18th Street
2006
Hospitality
San Francisco, CA
completed
Inspired by a field trip to the birthplace of pizza, Delfina's pizzeria is an interpretation of the best of the Neapolitan Pizzerias, which are at once plain, urban and functional. A white-tiled floor and wainscot are a crisp textural container for the quartersawn oak bar and banquette, which bracket an all-stainless steel kitchen. Honed slate wall panels comprise one full wall of the dining room and display the changing fare of the day. A new floor to ceiling storefront opens the space to the lively neighborhood streetscape.
Pizzeria Delfina Burlingame
2014
Hospitality
Burlingame, CA
completed
For this first Pizzeria Delfina location outside of San Francisco, we devised a nuanced strategy that allowed the qualities unique to the original pizzerias to flourish — an intimacy between patron and cook, an open kitchen that serves to energize and entertain the dining area, and a heightened level of service — while featuring a Sirron Norris mural above the main dining area, and adding a sizable patio to cater to Burlingame's warmer climate and strong outdoor dining culture.
Pacific Avenue Flat
2001
Residential
San Francisco, CA
completed
In response to the often foggy, windy microclimate of the Pacific Heights neighborhood in San Francisco, we designed an interior courtyard space at the center of this new penthouse addition. This space links the family room, view deck, playroom, tree deck and a guest bedroom suite by creating an interwoven matrix of interior and exterior spaces. This matrix of spaces blurs the distinction between inside and out and provides the surprise of sky, trees, wind, water and light to the previously closed, cellular flat.
Locanda
2011
Hospitality
San Francisco, CA
completed
Designing Locanda required a reflection of the restaurant’s reinterpretation of Roman cuisine. In using polarized qualities like loud and quiet, light and dark, modern and ancient, ENVELOPE crafted a spatial organization that played with fusing different worlds into the experience of enjoying great food. Our mixture of smart functionality and revered tradition runs through the details of Locanda, unifying the overall design with purpose and history, creating a contemporary space that one can relax into and just enjoy the food.
Linea Caffe
2013
Hospitality
San Francisco, CA
completed
Andrew Barnett, formerly of Ecco Caffe, approached envelope a+d to work on his espresso bar after getting to know the firm through his curatorial role in the Coffee Pavilion that we designed for Slow Food Nation. Barnett had located a scrappy space behind Duc Loi Supermarket in the Mission, and he teamed up with Anthony Myint of Mission Chinese Food to bring waffles and salads into the mix. envelope’s challenge was to fit the pedigree and ambition of Barnett and Myint, both forerunners in their fields, into 300 square feet and, on a budget to match.
In order to clearly demarcate Barnett and Myint’s distinct concepts, we employed a material change at the diagonal seam that is created by the perpendicular walls. The food concept, constrained by health standards for kitchens, was kept cool and utilitarian through the use of stainless steel, white ceramic tile and concrete. The espresso bar, anchored by a leggy oak service platform, was warmed to match its offerings with a honey-hued oak plywood wall in a hexagonal pattern designed and fabricated in-house. A brick red steel window frame opens to the side street, creating a ledge for people to stand and lean as they look onto the hubbub of the Mission.
John McNeil Studio
2012
Office
Berkeley, CA
completed
Our longstanding collaboration with John McNeil began with his creative studio’s offices in West Berkeley. A garage door in the workspace rolls up to let in the sun and breeze coming off the bay. The workspace peers into a large, airy kitchen that doubles as entertaining space for clients and colleagues.
The design carries through the feeling of McNeil's family home, a renovated Victorian adjacent to the offices. Comfortable spaces for collaboration are outfitted with furniture and fabrics that defy the conventions of contemporary workplaces.
The offices, home and studio annex together compose a distributed live-work complex nestled within Berkeley’s urban edge.
Durie Tangri
2011
Office
San Francisco, CA
completed
This headquarters for Durie Tangri, a law firm specializing in intellectual property, occupy the lower two floors of a turn-of-the-century mercantile building steps away from San Francisco’s iconic Transamerica Tower. envelope A+D transformed this historic structure with design a strategy rooted in the law firm’s mostly tech-related clients.
The spatial aspect of office prioritize openness and transparency: providing visual access while allowing for aural privacy where required for client confidentiality. Architectural expressions of the building systems, including the heavy-timber structural frame, venting ducts, sprinklers and data cabling, are treated as a kind of information with varying degrees of legibility throughout the varied spaces composing the offices.
On the main level, green rubber flooring defines more public meeting and reception spaces. On the upper floor, partner offices ring a central collaborative space defined by a “pool” of blue rubber. Collaborative spaces figure highly throughout the offices, supporting the firm’s need to actively collaborate in the crafting of new intellectual property laws in the territories of tech, web and biotechnology law. These flexible spaces promote casual group engagement through diverse postures from clustered seating focused on large white board walls to intimate couch-rooms to more traditional library-type work tables.
Delfina
2000
Hospitality
San Francisco, CA
completed
The cuisine of this infamous Mission District restaurant is elegant yet modest, based on the traditions of Tuscan cooking techniques but executed with a clarity of intent and a focus on the essence of the ingredients.
The architecture reflects this sensibility using a rich pallet of wrapping Jarrah hardwoods for the floor, built-in seating and bar elements. The red wood creates a warm, tactile space in which a number of zinc tables are set under a field of custom floating lights. These elements form a stage for the performance of dining, where the participants are simultaneously spectacle and audience.
Crane Court Residence
2010
Residential
California
completed
The Crane Court Residence began with a puzzle: how to resolve our client’s desire to have an inward-facing private courtyard house with the fact of a significantly sloping site with compelling outward facing views. The project solves the puzzle with a transformation of the courtyard house type, stepped to conform to the sloping site and with vertical surfaces opened to engage the interior living spaces with the experience of site. The result is a house that steps gracefully down the hillside with bedroom wings tucked under the primary living areas. The top surface of the lower bedroom volume creates an elevated rooftop terrace, protected on two sides and focused towards a distant view of the valley. The space of the living room focuses on a view of meadow on a prominent ridgeline, while the dining room and entry sequence nestles into the sheltered intimate undercanopy of a grove of existing Live Oaks.
Designed for a glazier and his family, the house is designed with maximum transparency to the near and distant views of the site. The solid components of the envelope are either cast-in-place concrete, as it rises from the ground, or a wood veneered phenolic rainscreen, which define the primary volumes of the building. The roof, gutters and eave edges are formed copper sheeting. The siting of the house was done to nestle the house into clusters of existing trees. The landscape design preferences the native California hillscape of Live Oaks and tall grasses.
Contigo
2009
Hospitality
San Francisco, CA
completed
The design for Contigo links garden, dining, kitchen and street through a series of overlapping figures within a continuous spatial tube that runs from the front facade to the rear garden. The kitchen is located up front to forge an active link with the life of the street, with fresh local foods delivered directly into the kitchen during the day, in the evening the frenetic activity of the kitchen is placed in the foreground of the dining experience. Here, a stool seating bar along the warped entry ramp allows for a close engagement with the experience of the preparation of the food.
The dining zone in the middle of the space is bracketed and embraced by the both kitchen and garden, with the kitchen refrigeration wall reaching back toward the garden and a captured verdant garden reaching toward the front entry. Dining is defined above by a playful lighting field of porcelain shades and below by a sinuous slatted oak bench and field of classic black Thonet chairs.
The sandblasted concrete floor surface that runs from the street to the garden forms a continuous connecting surface. Two separate circulations paths - a gentle S-shaped ramp and a more direct stair and aisle path - creates a generous multi-directional circulation that threads its way through the dining room as it negotiates the level change between sidewalk and garden.
The spatial tube that runs from the front to the back facades is a crisp white box, with material expression in the wood of the spatial saddle bags where redwood siding is re-used from the building’s original 100 year old building siding and the wood storefront of the front and rear facades. The garden design extends the space of the dining to a covered exterior, with a large urban garden planter for edible plantings.
Throughout the design and construction of the restaurant an ethic of sustainability and durability permeated the design decisions. As restaurant environments are extremely intense and unforgiving, a concerted effort was made to use materials and methods that are environmentally friendly, beautiful and will thrive in the restaurant environment.
