Here is a recently completed remodel of a kitchen in a San Francisco flat. It was a tight space before, but once two of the walls were removed it really opened up the living room to the kitchen. An island was placed where the two former walls met and we put in a skylight. The lighting was also updated.
One of the arguments for saving water that is a struggle for owners to accept is the fact that since water is so inexpensive, the return on investment for building water saving systems does not pencil out. The way California and the west will reduce its water usage has to be planned for strategically, it cannot occur through economic forces. Its strange, but water here is cheap and building a cistern in your back yard is not! With the population growing and the lack of feasible future technology such as de-salinization, there will be a water shortage. We must reduce our consumption of this precious resource. In another post we mention that water consumes roughly 33% of California’s overall energy use, thus not only does saving water save water, but it saves energy also. There is an attitude shift that has to happen. Read our other post here.
Here is a familiar form every licensed California architect has seen. This is the license renewal form sent by The California Architects Board, within California’s Department of Consumer Affairs. They regulate the practice of architecture in California. Ironically, an organization that regulates a design profession apparently does not use the services of a design professional for their forms. This form is very difficult to fill out. It is neither visually organized nor written clearly. There are many different sizes of text, fonts and formats. Inconsistently outlined blocks of text are not aligned with each other or justified.
As the year 2011 comes to a close, we share with you some favorite buildings we were lucky enough to visit this year. We always make an effort to see buildings wherever we go, but 2011 was special because we went to Chicago. This amazing city has some of this country’s most significant ones and we look forward to visiting again. The list is in order of year built.
Continue reading →
Remodelist featured our Lafayette house, have a look! Thank you Remodelista!
http://remodelista.com/posts/architect-visit-lafayette-remodel-by-hart-wright-architects-east-bay-aia-home-tour
Instead of showing you our work and explaining our ideas, this entry is about some of the places and things that have inspired us. We presented these images in person at the AIA East Bay office when they hosted a “Pecha Kucha” Slide Show to introduce the Home Tour architects. Continue reading →
Our Lafayette Project Will be featured on 8/13/11. Please save the date for the first ever AIA East Bay Home Tours, August 13, 2011, where you will see one of our projects featured!
Here is a brief case study of a remodel where the objective of the project was to add light to the space, make the bedroom bigger, brighter and more functional, and to remodel the bath. Costs were kept down by not moving any plumbing fixtures and the goals were accomplished with some simple non-structural changes to the plan. Continue reading →
We are often asked by our clients to bid the project to multiple contractors. The argument for this is that they will be able to compare the price offered by the different contractors and go with the lowest price. This is more complicated than it seems because you are not necessarily getting the lowest price when you sign up with the lowest bidder as we will explain below.