The Steps of San Francisco

San Francisco steps, concrete, multiple flights

San Francisco is built on hills - very steep hills.  And, its street layout is basically a traditional grid overlaid on this topography.  This makes for a lot of very crazy inclines for both streets and buildings.  For residential properties, this most often means steps up to the front door.  Many, many steps.

So many steps in fact that the "front door" of the house is really this multiple flight of stairs.

We recently started working on a project in Marin County, north of San Francisco, and I managed to get a day free to walk around the city.  And what struck me most was these vertiginous steps.  Some, like those pictured above, are composed of shifted flights that, one would suppose, take you up to a door unseen from the street.  They are attached to an otherwise fairly conventional structure and are a functional solution to the sharp grade change.  Others, like those shown below, are a presence unto themselves:

San Francisco steps, stone, multiple flights, with gate and funicular

These cascading stone steps curve up to a house almost invisible behind the retaining walls and private funicular (far right side) - a house that surely is a worthy culmination of all the effort required to get there.

San Francisco steps, brick, multiple flights

San Francisco steps, concrete, multiple flights

The stairs provide a very special function for a residence in the city - they create a layered sense of privacy that increases from the sidewalk to the house.  While some are rather fortress-like, most are subtle and have multiple smaller sets of stairs at the sidewalk's edge to begin to define the edge between public and private.  While the homeowners can claim legal property rights to all the steps, the lowest portions are as much in the public realm as the sidewalk.  The best of these stairs present the lowest step or two as a little gift to the sidewalk strollers of the city, a place to step out of the line of pedestrians, set down a package or reconsider the path home.

San Francisco steps, brick, under cover

I also especially like the little, quiet, private stairs that hide behind walls and other entrances.  These hold the promise of a kind of intimacy and civic grace - maybe only possible in a city with moderate crime rates and little icy mornings.

tile, pattern, geometry

nocce travertine, brick coursed

As I have probably spoken about in previous posts, we draw no real distinction between architecture and interiors.  They are all a part of crafting a series of spaces that are made of various materials that make up a building.  To that extent, we spend as much time, and often considerably more, choosing interior materials.

emperador marble, nocce and durango travertine, 3D cube pattern

Of particular pleasure for an architect may be the selection of tile materials, colors and patterns, as those selections are inherently tied up with geometry.  Overall the selection of materials and colors in a space need to balance and most frequently this can result in creating fairly simple floor patterns with tile run in a conventional grid arrangement.  However, I think it is a missed opportunity if we can not select a type of tile and a specific pattern of its installation that can reinforce the spatial and geometric ideas that are playing out in the rest of the space.

KL tile 01

The photos here are all from a recent project of ours in Boulder, Colorado, that was almost entirely an interiors-only project.  As a renovation of a conventional builder-type house, we avoided the costs of removing and changing a lot of interior walls by re-imagining the existing rooms and selecting materials and colors that would reinforce the nicer aspects of each space and draw one's attention away from the less-desirable parts.  Floor tile patterns were crucial to this strategy and became a theme in the newly envisioned house.

durango travertine and blue glass tiles, ashlar pattern, tile spacers still in place

I have written about my theory of the relative levels of abstraction of natural materials from their sources.  More than consistent color or theme or pattern, I think this is the most intriguing way of creating harmony within a series of spaces without resorting to a slavish consistency or patronizing "style".  Although the types and colors of the tiles used on the project were quite varied, they work together as a whole and are specific to each use and room to be functional and add to the overall feel of the house.

This project will conclude in the next few weeks and we will see the final results of the play of color and geometry to bring resolution to a house much in need of some character and order.

2013 Year End roundup - some images from the past 12 months

year end round up 2013