HONORS:
- AIA California Design Award
- Marin County Platinum Sustainable
- FEMA Best Practice
- "Prince of Tides," Dwell Magazine
- "The Most Beautiful Houses in America"

SITE:
- Built: Stinson Beach, CA
- Prototype: global flood hazard zones
- Hazards: seismic and tsunami

DESIGN:
- Innovative hybrid prefab adaptable to context
- House remains functional during wave action

TECHNOLOGY:
- New cost-efficient floating foundation
- Passive solar design with floating sun court
- Ground floor walls retractable into docks
- Optional star-gazing roof / emergency hatch

HONORS:
- AIA New Jersey Design Award
- USGBC Resilience Exemplar

SITE:
- High flood hazard zone, northern NJ

DESIGN:
- LEED Hybrid Prefab, hurricane-resistant design
- Ground floor open for flood or lounge area
- Maximized views over Atlantic Ocean
- Passive solar and natural ventilation

TECHNOLOGY:
- Innovative high-strength frame over piers
- Missile-impact glazing, super-insulated walls
- Articulations and setbacks reduce wind loads
- Cost-efficient hollowed concrete foundation
- No-VOC finishes, 100% FSC-certified woods
- Drains to cistern for rainwater harvesting

The cantilevered Wing House presents itself quietly on the street, and dramatically hovers over the beach in a pure white steel structure set on intermittent concrete fins.

The central living room stretches gracefully under an invisible fifty-foot beam enabling fully retractable glass walls facing the garden and pool.

The inside-outside space is backdropped by a curved concrete wall off which cantilevers a steel and stone stair. Light from above dapples the smooth concrete and textured stone surfaces.

KENTFIELD, CA

The site is a small plateau on the base of Mount Tamalpais.

DESIGN AND TECHNOLOGY:

The new house embraces mountain views with superimposed cantilevers and textured materials filtering the bright California light. The old ranch house framing is seismically upgraded, then fireproofed by spray-on insulation, layers of gypsum, and CMUs holding a new second floor. In order to maintain the neighborhood character, some the exterior cladding appears to have wood accents, but is a superior fire-resistant porcelain system. Roofs are designed with an interplay of tile roof decks, liquid-applied areas for high performance drainage, and intermittent succulents.

Design: 2024, Construction: 2025

The Wrap House utilizes a shell-like roof wrapper, a lightweight exoskeleton enclosing sheltered view rooms. During high-wind events, hidden hurricane shutters roll out from the exterior frame, and the house transforms itself like a hermit crab. Twisting back and forth along the street facade, the wrapper inverts itself into a pure set of parallel roofs echoing the beach and horizon.

The ground floor is clad in limestone like the ocean’s calcium deposits, while the upper floors evoke floating driftwood and sails. The central living room reaches up two stories, traversed by nautical bridges supporting retractable glass doors, bringing the sound and light of the ocean inside.

SITE:
- South Bay hillside with views north to San Francisco

DESIGN:
- An old ranch house is reduced to its foundation, then doubled in size with perpendicular buttress walls, and opened to bay views, hovering above shallow reflecting pools with deeper koi basins.
- The entry dematerializes against the oaks, providing a continually changing light box dappling in the light of the moving water.

TECHNOLOGY:
- Fire-resistant concrete surround, entry pools, and drought-tolerant planting
- Cost-efficient new structural additions and stucco volumes, with quality accents of cedar, ipe, and stone.

PUBLICATIONS:
- ADUs, The Perfect Housing Solution
- "He Got Tired of His Big House, So He Built a Small One in the Backyard," The Wall Street Journal

SITE AND PROGRAM: Accessory Dwelling Unit for an art collector in a Wurster House garden, a quarter mile from the Hayward Fault

DESIGN: Modest footprint with inside-out courts allows for an efficient building permit without neighborhood review, and enables a phased building expansion. The open plan is surrounded by clerestories viewing the surrounding tree canopy.

TECHNOLOGY: A roof diaphragm floats atop an earthquake-proof steel column structure, set above a thickened edge slab-on-grade with radiant heating. The concrete foundation is lightly incised into the hillside, creating a rear retaining wall to divert rainwater.

PROGRAM:
- New house and interior pool

DESIGN:
- A pure stucco facade zig-zags along the entry, containing walkways and dramatizing volumes
- Acute angles are reminiscent of the surrounding historic embattlements
- Travertine cladding creates a plinth for the ephemeral stucco spaces above

TECHNOLOGY:
- Cost-efficient stucco with thin-set travertine
- Custom oak window frame accents

PUBLICATIONS:
“All Hands on the Deck,” S.F. Chronicle
"Layers of Living," Vancouver Sun

SITE AND PROGRAM:
-Penthouse addition with double-level roof deck

DESIGN:
-Wind-sheltered lower deck with gathering space
-Second level view deck providing bay and city views
-Evening reception area with kitchen and screening area

TECHNOLOGY:
-Louvered west windscreens to eliminate turbulence
-Cantilevered penthouse roof over glass entry
-Media closet with concealed projector
-Fire-resistant ipe decking

SITE AND PROGRAM:
- Preservation of first S.F. Landmark Modernist house, designed by Morrow & Morrow, architects of the Golden Gate Bridge

DESIGN AND TECHNOLOGY:
- New mid-century interior design
- Innovative modern custom steel windows
- Teak and plaster walls, with silk accents
- Red trims echo the Golden Gate

PROGRAM:
-Subterranean gallery, pool, and wine cellar

DESIGN:
-Excavation as addition, natural earth insulation
-Maintain existing views, use unearthed stone

TECHNOLOGY:
-Independently operable terra-cotta and glass retractable walls
-Excavated sandstone retaining walls, landscaped steps
-Underground concrete wine cellar core
-Polished and rough travertine floors

PROGRAM:
New house, office, gardens, and pool
Sacramento, CA

DESIGN:
The new house occupies a small plateau, overlooking a valley of oaks, with a dramatic lake view stretching to the horizon. A travertine pool blurs with the lake, creating an infinite borrowed waterscape.

TECHNOLOGY:
- Ground floor retractable glass walls
- Cantilevered master suite over oak forest
- Passive solar design and photovoltaic glazing
- Second floor volumes are bridged between buttresses, enabling expansive ground floor views.

CALIFORNIA | TUSCANY

Earth Sheltered - Passive Solar
Fire Resistant - Earthquake Proof
Cast Stone - Terracotta
Passive Solar - Gravity Fermentation

ATLANTIC | PACIFIC COASTS

AIA CA and NJ Awards - USGBC Resilience Exemplar

LEED Certifications - Platinum Sustainability

Cantilevered Floors - Floating Foundations

Earthquake - Flood - Hurricane-Resistance

Two New Houses

The Shift House superimposes two adjacent residential street grids, resulting in shifting perspectives inside and out. The upper floor floats on travertine-clad structural fins, allowing ground floor glass walls to fully retract to pool and garden views. The house facades weave together cedar and stucco finishes, wrapping around the shifted grids, creating a new fluid space of infinite angles.

The Inside Out House superimposes two geometries, one generated from the program, inside-out, the other from the landscape, outside-in. The wrapping forms zig-zag to create a green origami roof folded around a central light court. The site is framed by excavated walkways and falling water from the pool reflecting in underground rooms, while the house above soars above like a cloud.

LOCAL AND INTERNATIONAL

Hurricane-Proof Houses - New Jersey

Fire-Resistant Houses - California

Prefab Condos - Capitola

University Library - Italy

Modular Housing - Brooklyn

Multifamily Housing - Santa Cruz

Mixed-Use Infill - Florence

Modular Live/Work - Hunters Point

University of Venice - Fulbright Grant

Vertical Garden Towers - New York

New Downtown Center - San Francisco

Urban Campus - Silicon Valley

Ski Hotel - Lake Tahoe