Urban Nature- Reconceptualizing San Francisco Public Restrooms and Kiosks

In the mid-1990s, the San Francisco Department of Public Works contracted with the French outdoor advertising company JCDecaux to provide two dozen accessible, self-cleaning public restrooms to be scattered throughout the city’s sidewalks in areas with high foot traffic. Along with them came 114 advertising kiosks. Both restrooms and kiosks resembled their counterparts in Paris, with Art Nouveau curves and gold accents. They may have added a necessary function to the streetscape, but aesthetically, they didn’t have anything in particular to do with San Francisco.

Resilient Case Study House – Calistoga

Calistoga, California
The Northern California wildfires of 2017 have had a devastating impact on the region that will resonate for decades. The Tubbs Fire tore across Calistoga and down slope to Santa Rosa along Mark West Road. The recovery will take many years. We see this recovery as an opportunity not just to rebuild, but to rebuild smarter, more resilient, and ecologically attuned structures.

Balancing the Traditional and the Contemporary on a Berkeley Hillside

Recently, the AIA East Bay gave one of our firm’s houses a 2017 Merit Award, so we thought we would tell the story behind the design, which involved a tricky remodel on a difficult site.

Harvey Milk Plaza – Finalist

San Francisco, CA
Harvey Milk Plaza will serve as a welcoming door to the city’s historic Castro District and a destination to learn about the life (and times) of Harvey Milk. We envision the Plaza as an unified and integrated experiential memorial to inspire generations to come.
In collaboration with RHAA Landscape Architect and Catherine Wagner Studio

Lodi Bunkhouse

St. Helena, CA
The conversion of an existing industrial shed into living quarters for an extended family. The 4,500 square feet of interior space includes four bedrooms and large communal areas for artist’s gatherings.

Speaking in Tubes

For three days in early October, the 2016 Market Street Prototyping Festival gave the public a chance to experience more than three dozen ideas for enhancing San Francisco’s main drag and creatively engaging people with the urban environment and with each other. Created by teams who answered a call for submissions last April, the installations ranged from an artistic ping-pong table to an enclosure containing homemade musical instruments to a hand-crank-powered box that distributed stories and artwork. Kuth Ranieri’s contribution, SonoGROTTO, was a pavilion made of hundreds of cardboard tubes, carved to create seats, windows, and an oculus that frames views to the sky.

San Francisco International Airport – Terminal 1C

San Francisco, CA
Kuth Ranieri teamed with Gensler on the design for the 1.1 million square-foot SFO Terminal 1 Center Renovation Project. Through design-build delivery with Hensel Phelps, the new terminal redeveloped one of the Airport’s oldest terminals to meet the needs of modern travelers and revolutionize the guest experience.

A Gensler / Kuth Ranieri Architects Joint Venture

SonoGROTTO

San Francisco, CA
A proposal for the 2016 Market Street Prototyping Festival, SonoGROTTO creates a space of respite and repose on the busy sidewalk. Catering to a diverse range of ages, users and situations, SonoGROTTO hopes to provide space for reflection, refuge and a myriad of alternate uses which visitors bring to the piece.

Randall Museum Renovation

San Francisco, CA
Through coordination of architectural design, interpretive graphics, and live animal exhibits, we have organized various disciplines for the creation of a place of comprehensive scientific and artistic exploration.

In Joint Venture with Pfau Long Architecture

Balboa Pool Renovation

San Francisco, CA
The proposed design for Balboa Park Pool renovates the existing natatorium facilities in an economic way, leaving essential elements in place while enhancing the user experience and upgrading the structural and environmental systems to meet sustainable standards of performance.

In Joint Venture with ELS Architecture

San Francisco International Airport – Employee Cafe

San Francisco, CA
One of a number of “Enabling Projects” as part of the T1C Renovation, the project renovated a former Chinese restaurant, bordered on one side by an existing TSA security barrier. The design creates a “Pop Up” feeling to reflect the two year life span.
In Joint Venture with Gensler

Folding Water™: A Ventilated Levee for a Living Estuary

San Francisco Estuary and Delta, CA
Folding Water™ is a ventilated levee proposal designed to protect shorelines by regulating rising sea levels over the next 100 years caused by warming oceans.

Mission Bay: A Proposal for a Green District Identity

San Francisco, CA
The proposal for this green district includes a pedestrian street bridge, skateboard park, aviary, eco-magnet high school, and CCA’s student and media center.

Vertical Wetlands

San Francisco, CA
Vertical Wetlands is a proposal that addresses San Francisco’s immediate water-related challenges.

AIDS Memorial Grove

San Francisco, CA
Our design strategy proposes to define and link the intimacy of the National Aids Memorial Grove to the encompassing daily urbanism of its surrounding city and culture.

In collaboration with Rodolphe el-Khoury (ReK Productions)

Harvey Milk Memorial Car

San Francisco, CA
This memorial streetcar is meant to connect the Castro District with downtown San Francisco. In this regard, the memorial, like Harvey Milk’s impact, is not confined to a particular district but transcends across boundaries within the city.

Tooth Spa

Sunnyvale, CA
San Francisco’s first LEED Silver certified dental office, the 2,400-square-foot suite creates an inviting presence for passersby, emphasizing the visual impact of the reception “living room.”

Champions of the Bay Area Heroic

I grew up in San Francisco in a building designed by Julia Morgan, one of the earliest and most influential architects of the Bay Region style. (The building happened to be the San Francisco Zen Center.) So it may seem surprising that two of my biggest architectural heroes are Mario Ciampi and Paffard Keatinge-Clay, designers of concrete buildings in the style commonly labeled “Brutalist.”

32 Dental

American Canyon, CA
Our strategy for 32 Dental focused on creating a calming, elegant dental care environment with an emphasis on green design.

Museum of the American Indian

Novato, CA
The Museum of the American Indian in Miwok Park, Novato, is the only cultural resource of its kind in the Bay Area protecting an exceptional collection of native artifacts.

LEF Offices / Gallery

Napa Valley, CA
Echoing the evident assembly of the historic stone shell, the walls are designed to portray their essential construction, a resonance between old and new.

In collaboration with Jim Jennings Architecture

Hillsborough Residence

Hillsborough, CA
The redesign of this Chicago-modernist home, designed in the 1970s, introduces a new narrative of materiality that renews the relationship between the building and the landscape by blurring boundaries indoors and outdoors.

GLBT History Museum

San Francisco, CA
In the Castro District, The GLBT History Museum is the first stand-alone museum of its kind in the United States and serves as a center for the Gay, Lesbian, and Bisexual Transgender Historical Society to interpret the history of the GLBT communities.

In collaboration with Steve Const

CAMP: A Gateway Proposal Presidio Museum

San Francisco, CA
The CAMP Museum resolves the monumental spatial corridor by framing the north/south axis with flanking galleries and extending a contiguous greenway.

The Body in Repose

San Francisco, CA
This installation at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art revolved around themes of body, material, and fabrication.

Curated by Aaron Betsky

Guest House / Gallery

San Francisco, CA
The project is designed with the consideration of the building’s perimeter walls as display surfaces for art and utilizes industrial felt to enrich the domestic functions of this residence.

Wurster Residence Renovation

San Francisco, CA
The patterns and demands of contemporary life dictated the reconfiguration of key areas of the house. Architectural interventions accommodated the needs of the owners while maintaining the identity and experience of Wurster’s remarkable design.

Claremont Canyon Residence

Oakland, CA
Nestled in a valley at the base of Claremont Canyon, this 1937 2-story residence was originally designed by Bay Area architect John Ekin Dinwiddie. The renovation creates a modern addition that integrates seamlessly with the existing shell and injects the family’s character with modern craft.

Nob Hill Residence

San Francisco, CA
The house is sited on a narrow alley that transforms from street to garden at the building’s front door. The project falls between the grid of the city and the organic nature of a garden landscape.

Russian Hill Penthouse

San Francisco, CA
Our intention was to create an interior realm that establishes a seamless continuity with distant views of the landscape, creating a project that was to internalize the color, material and texture of the surrounding vistas of bay, mountain, city, and sky.

Park Presidio Residence

San Francisco, CA
Consisting of 6,500 sf of living space spread over four levels, this private residence was designed for a family of six. Sustainability and energy independence were integral to the conception and realization of this project.

Russian Hill Co-op

San Francisco, CA
This interior renovation of a 4,500 sf full floor unit provides modern living for a client with an extensive contemporary art collection as well as a home office. Situated in Russian Hill, the home commands a 360º view of San Francisco.

Napa Valley Residence

Napa Valley, CA
Anchored by a system of interdependent walls and enclosures that contain the domestic functions, its partitions are arranged in an open plan.

In collaboration with Jim Jennings Architecture

San Rafael Ranch

San Rafael, CA
The renovation of this midcentury ranch includes a remodel of a main house, guest house, and garden design. The strategies to open the home to the landscape include a new garden entry to connect front and back gardens and enlarged windows to maximize light and garden views.

Russian Hill Apartment

San Francisco, CA
Subtle drifts in plan and section extend the movement from the interior to the distant landscape.

Notre Dame de Namur University Center

Belmont, CA
A proposal for a new student center for Notre Dame de Namur University, a Catholic University in Belmont, California.

In Joint Venture with Paulett Taggart Architects