Pacifica Residence
The home is located in the coastal city of Pacifica, which feels more like a fishing town than a city, with the main street lined with bait shops and taverns. The clients purchased the existing dilapidated structure with a plan to renovate with the singular goal of creating a working studio space. Both the client and the architect aimed to evoke simplicity, in both structure and function.
The couple presented early inspiration images from past travels, some of the most memorable featured gabled Scandinavian fishing shacks with white framed windows set against a simple contrasting all-black form. The existing structure, set in a fishing town context, lent itself to be rendered with modern materials resembling the style and feeling of the Scandinavian coastal village structures.
Over the course of the schematic design process the clients realized that the final product might not satisfy the entirety of their needs by the time their vision is realized. For that reason, the studio component became supplemental to a fully formed home, providing the clients room to expand their family while still providing the original much-needed working studio element. From this point forward the challenge was to create a structure that allows the clients to work and live in the same space, while also providing the required emotional and mental separation of domestic and professional activities.
The project site is a through lot with two distinct street faces, which lent itself to a home designed with two contrasting façades to match the project’s functional duality. The existing simple gabled structure on Palmetto Avenue was designated for family life functions and outfitted to read as a “classic” family residence, with black horizontal fiber cement siding and white window frames. An added shed roof massing on Hilton Way houses the new studio and is clad in corrugated Corten to indicate the less-standard program within. The two structures are connected by an outdoor “bridge,” a roof deck that serves as outdoor dining or lounging for either structure. The only other connection to the upper level studio is through a sheltered external staircase. Both transitions from home to studio are through external connections, creating a sense of separation between domestic and professional spaces.
The existing structure, designated for the home, was preserved to the greatest extent possible, surgically editing to modernize and expand the square footage required for a growing family. The original Douglas Fir T+G floor was sanded down and patched with reclaimed material. The existing roof structure was exposed and painted. The roof was structurally upgraded and insulated from above then tied together with tensioned steel pipes. The exterior was re-sided, painted black, and new thermally broken windows with white frames were installed. Motorized shades are hidden in the existing wall framing and controlled with a lighting control system programmed to move with the sun to further reduce heat-gain.
The new studio is rendered in contrast to the home, but with a similar simplicity. The studio shelving is made of framing lumber in the common framing dimension of 16” on center x 16” on center. The windows were ordered to fit in this same module. The powder room is all galvanized sheet metal, a common flashing material, and the exterior is clad in corrugated Corten, a siding material which does not require a finish.
Both structures evoke the sense of simplicity as originally intended. However, the evolution of the program requirements and the combined efforts of the clients and design professionals created a unique procession, material palette and façade duality that defines the character and nature of the contrasting functions within the spaces.