Bay School Building 36

The Bay School of San Francisco is an independent high school which has operated out two buildings in the historic …

Consequential Disruptions in Transportation Infrastructure

Having moved to San Francisco from Boston months prior to the 1989 Loma Prieta earthquake, I experienced firsthand the sudden destruction of much of the city’s infrastructure, including the irreparable damage to the elevated 50-foot-high two-level Embarcadero Freeway and the disruptions to transit access. This controversial piece of infrastructural highway, which was envisioned to create an expedited vehicular connection from the city’s Bay Bridge to the Golden Gate Bridge, bypassing the city grid, was at that point realized but only in part.

Floating and Energy-Independent Public Safety Architecture A Strategy of Resilience

Public safety facilities along our shores grow more vulnerable due to rising seas, which continue to threaten coastal communities and infrastructure with more frequent flooding and inundation. Designing public safety buildings—or retrofitting existing ones—as floating and energy-independent structures is a viable way to maximize resiliency and preserve continued operations.

Newsletter #11

Last month, we were excited to host our annual office retreat at the Randall Museum, a project we did a few years back with our good friends at Pfau Long Architecture (now Perkins&Will). The retreat was a great success: we began to craft a mission statement, reviewed personal and team goals, and—above all—enjoyed reconnecting with one another. We are now back at the office with a hybrid work model and are relishing collaborating informally and working with each other in person again.

The Bay School of San Francisco Master Facilities Plan & Strategic Improvements

San Francisco, CA
Kuth Ranieri is currently leading The Bay School Campus Facilities Master Plan, a 20-year plan for an independent high school founded in 2004. In just 15 years, The Bay School (Bay) has built a robust reputation for its academic program, but its facilities have proven to be a constraint. It occupies two historically significant buildings in The Presidio, operated by The Presidio Trust – Building 35 (62,779 SF) and Building 3 (3,574 SF) – both of which present the challenges of an inflexible column grid, proportions not conducive to teaching and learning, infrastructure approaching the end of its useful life and outdated furnishings and finishes that don’t fully support student activities.

Clover

Santa Rosa, CA
In the fall of 2017, one of our clients lost their house to the Santa Rosa wildfires. Not long after, they asked us to drive up from San Francisco and talk about designing a new house on the same site. The landscape was eerie, all ashes and chimneys and bent, burnt, broken things.