SAN FRANCISCO STONEMILL MATCHA SAN FRANCISCO Stonemill Matcha engaged Studio BBA to design their first tea café location in the U.S. market—for our focus on creating architecture that inspires authentic customer experiences, as well as our expertise in destination café design. Like the Japanese tea ceremony itself, our design centered on the spirit of transformation and translation, and imparting a mindful experience. The resulting aesthetic is a deep and purposeful melding of two cultures and of function and beauty—with finishes and a composition grounded in Japanese traditional design and ritual, in a space infused with local flavor. In particular, Stonemill Matcha’s private tea room blossomed into an exceptionally special place for San Francisco—exuding materiality, tradition, serenity and calm. Soft lighting cascades over the surfaces, and a washi art installation by Eriko Horiki graces the back wall. Before we began the project it was critical to the Stonemill owners that we experience the art of the ancient tea ceremony at its source; to truly understand the ritual and its embodiment. We were invited to Japan and given the opportunity to immerse ourselves in the culture: attending modern, historic and combination ceremonies, staying at a historic Ryokan, meditating in a Kyoto temple, and delighting in the local arts, stores and restaurants. Through our schematic design process we distilled these influences into a totem of sorts, representing to us the idea of these two cultures coming together—a matchstick. The matchstick was chosen for its essential component properties of wood, extruded square, orthogonal strength and scalability, and was used in conceptual modeling for the café’s spatial elements. Back to Projects page Client Stonemill Matcha BBA Team Bonnie Bridges Megan McGuinn Size 2,580 SF Contractor ACI General Contractors Collaborators Styling: Nicole Taramibuchi Photography Mariko Reed Back to top

SAN FRANCISCO BOLT HQ SAN FRANCISCO For this adaptive reuse project we transformed a banal, South-of-Market industrial site into the headquarters for an ambitious mechanical engineering Venture Capitalist company. Four client-centric objectives guided the architecture: creating space that embodies BOLT’s entrepreneurial engineering/making culture, adding functionality and purpose to all parts of the property, integrating BOLT-made steel elements, and producing a delightful, fun workplace. The property contains two connected, warehouse buildings with a shared courtyard, and the client’s need for a machine shop quickly claimed the smaller building. Existing conditions in the large building—open floor plan, high vaulted ceilings and a mezzanine—posed creative challenges and opportunities for subdividing the volume into the spaces required: offices, open work areas, casual and private meeting spaces, manufacturing incubator/prototype labs and staff amenities that comprised the program requirements, as well as a large multi-purpose space for hosting events and presentations. By inserting a ‘pod’ of meeting and phone rooms into the middle of the large structure we designated space for the labs and event space. Finished birch plywood cladding on the pod’s exterior provides a warm juxtaposition to the existing concrete infrastructure. As a passionate and capable fabricator, BOLT took on a variety of details throughout and after project completion including the custom steel signs, the shipping container courtyard café, and the sculptural feature wall. The final product is a place that inspires creativity and invention, and an architecture that celebrates a utilitarian sense of place. Back to Projects page Client Bolt BBA Team Bonnie Bridges Dave Ornvold Size 10,160 SF + 2,000 SF Courtyard Contractor CCI Collaborators Structural: Santos & Urrutia Structural Engineers, Inc. Photography Iris Brito Stevens Back to top

SAN FRANCISCO THE PLANT CAFÉ ORGANIC - MONTGOMERY SAN FRANCISCO Focused on serving local, organic, seasonal creations to a high-traffic, hungry FiDi crowd, this large café is the result of combining two adjacent restaurant spaces. The build-out required a focus on creating an efficient customer experience and well-organized staff work areas, to support their busy breakfast and lunch hours of operation. Studio BBA interjected our value for materiality into the airy white shell, adding texture, mood and human scale. To bring warmth we clad the existing 18’ ceiling in douglas fir wood, and designed a maple window counter and custom maple and steel casework. Subtle decorative elements include dimensional Heath tiles and Kreme wallpaper, designed and made in California, and a concrete floor appliqué. Custom planter boxes and wire trellis at the windows will support climbing vines to green the space. Devising the menu display became our team’s favorite detail on the project. We created a custom steel framework operated by electric winch. The apparatus sends the menu high up for visibility when posted, and easily facilitates bringing the whole assembly down for menu changes. Back to Projects page Client The Plant Café Organic BBA Team Seth Boor Bonnie Bridges Megan McGuinn Size 3,300 SF Contractor Northern Sun Associates, Inc. Collaborators MEP: MHC Engineers Food Service Consultant: Robert Yick Company Photography Nicholas V. Ruiz Back to top

UTAH CUB UTAH The clients purchased this beautiful and secluded parcel of land in the red rock country of Southern Utah 14 years ago when they fell in love with the area. After acquiring one of only a few water permits in 2008, the clients turned to Studio BBA to design a C.U.B., a "Camp Utah Base," that maximizes the natural experience while providing a simple and comfortable place to call home-away-from-home. The design task was to create a base camp from which to venture out - returning at night to a place that provides the same feeling of expansiveness as the red rock valley. Through our process, we discovered new ways to create a luxurious home without the distracting and artificial elements that appear all too often in homes surrounded by nature. Studio BBA achieved simple luxury through subtle design moves and strategic plans for passive cooling and natural light. The new home provides ample room for the clients and a few guests to enjoy the calming interiors, connecting the valley through wind, view, and sounds. The multiple decks allow for outdoor living in every season. Conceptually, the two wings, one public and one private, are connected by what we call the "knuckle" - a shed-shaped entry space that connects the gable geometries of the two wings. We preserved the natural pinion pine and juniper in the landscape and integrated various sustainable design elements (PV array to provide 90% of power, site orientation to maximize passive cooling and natural light, and efficient framing with TJI's) to ensure this home is effectively and consciously situated in its natural environment. Back to Projects page Client Confidential BBA Team Bonnie Bridges Size 1,650 SF Contractor Paul Brown & Sons Construction Collaborators Structural: Shen Engineering Cabinets: Nathan Morrell Cabinets Photography Studio BBA Back to top

SOMA, SAN FRANCISCO SIGHTGLASS COFFEE SOMA, SAN FRANCISCO Highly anticipated at the time of opening, Sightglass Coffee’s flagship café with production roaster occupies a 7,500 sq. ft. building in San Francisco's SOMA district—the first of our many projects with Sightglass. The owners’ vision was twofold—to create transparency and openness between the café and roaster functions, and to establish a neighborhood cornerstone that could help ground the area as it evolves. We designed the airy industrial interior with purity of spatial experience in mind; as an homage to coffee culture and collaborative artistry. Highly crafted, the new infrastructure and architectural elements are intentionally minimalist and subtle in their response to the original shell—to emphasize materiality and meticulous detail. The seamless indoor/outdoor flow fosters connection between the interior and street life, and the open, intertwined service and roaster areas enable guests to be in the midst of the entire coffee-making sequence—with the gorgeous Probat at its hub. In a truly collective construction process with the contractor and talented craftsmen—all longtime collaborators on Studio BBA projects—we were able to realize some distinctive, one-of-a-kind features. Each contributed their creativity and expertise—from recreating the Japanese art of Shou-sugi-ban for a decorative burnt wood siding treatment, to piecing together over 38 reclaimed steel joist hangers for a custom light fixture. Back to Projects page Client Sightglass Coffee BBA Team Bonnie Bridges Seth Boor Size 7,500 SF Contractor Kevin Smith Collaborators MEP: MHC Engineers Structural: Semco Engineering Photography Bruce Damonte Studio BBA Back to top

MISSION, SAN FRANCISCO SIGHTGLASS ON 20TH MISSION, SAN FRANCISCO Light-filled, airy and bustling, Studio BBA’s design for Sightglass on 20th offers the comfort of an old-world café with the distilled simplicity of a sailboat cabin. We chose a refined material palette of marble, plaster, teak and dark brass to warm the double-height industrial warehouse space, while continuing the purity of spatial experience inherent in their design of Sightglass SOMA . Studio BBA custom-designed almost every detail in this café—fixtures, hardware, displays, finishes—envisioning a close-knit family of intricately detailed elements that reference each other, but each have their own iteration. Three custom chandeliers define the customer and employee zones, and draw the eye up toward the redwood sapwood ceiling’s chevron pattern, which was subtly introduced in the steel entry door design. Detailing of the niches for merchandise display and music equipment relate to woodwork in the bar and seating areas. The brass pastry case is a jewelry box of sorts, custom crafted and placed at standing height for optimal visibility and access. The café’s layout nestles all its programmatic elements efficiently, including a full-production roastery with vintage Probat roaster that roasts enough to serve and sell on site, inventively designed espresso and pour-over coffee bars and customer circulation that facilitates optimal flow. The sinuous, cushioned banquette wraps the perimeter, providing for all seating needs: outward-facing single spots for people-watching, intimate nooks to share, and a group area. Studio BBA used a mock-up with sliding parts to determine the ideal dimensions for each seating area. From initial concept through construction observation, Studio BBA’s role included space planning, coordination with city agencies, and collaboration with the fabricators, baristas and general contractor. Back to Projects page Client Sightglass Coffee BBA Team Seth Boor Bonnie Bridges Anand Sheth Size 950 SF Contractor SmithBuilt Collaborators Structural: Tim O'Sullivan Structural Design Photography Matthew Millman Studio BBA Back to top

SAN FRANCISCO HUMANGEAR HQ SAN FRANCISCO Human-centric design and scale is vital to this industrial design company’s ethos and product development process, making them a great match for BBA and the fundamental importance that human experience plays in our studio’s design approach. For their HQ we created a place where their values, production and office culture coexist as one—with a deliberately laid back, collaborative, welcoming and industrial vibe. Humangear’s historic brick and concrete building was originally built as an auto-body shop, and had gone through many iterations over the years. Our mission was to uphold its original character and authenticity of use while modernizing it for 21st century business, so we started by polishing the concrete slab, refurbishing wood trusses, sandblasting the walls. The workshop is front and center to highlight their design development practices; where they prototype, problem-solve and refine their products. Beyond that a large open office area occupies the heart of the interior, where custom-built ‘desking islands’, clad in reclaimed douglas fir, provide hubs for staff collaboration. The main ‘desking island’ enjoys a natural canopy—a nucleus of large planters that support an indoor tree and greenery…and hints at the building’s most unique asset, the rear courtyard. An oversized roll-up garage door in the back wall, framed by a vibrant blue staff lounge and kitchenette, leads to a connected open air space that we transformed into a truly magical modern oasis. The light-filled, private park-like setting features varied areas of landscaping and casual work spaces, including a custom banquette and firepit. Back to Projects page Client Humangear BBA Team Bonnie Bridges Seth Boor Size 6,700 SF Contractor Barker O'Donoghue Collaborators Landscape: Sculpt Gardens Photography Cesar Rubio Back to top

SAN FRANCISCO HARTFORD SAN FRANCISCO Clients new to San Francisco, with a love of modern, came to us to design a spacious, light-filled urban sanctuary within the context of their newly-purchased 1890s Victorian. Minor updates to the historic façade maintain the original sense of privacy, but new visual connections to the outside are enjoyed throughout the thoroughly remodeled interior. A large skylight with exposed beams spans the front living spaces, accentuating new openness where the center hallway formerly enclosed the entry. A family of integral gray materials—counters, fireplace surround, and dual-glazed tile by Heath—articulates the spaces and provides a background for the clients’ personal art and furniture collection. Through large openings in the rear, the new great room and intimate patio area become one large entertaining, dining and living space, with lighting, power, and heating systems that make the outdoor area usable on even the foggiest San Francisco evenings. A climate-appropriate garden is being created by the landscape-savvy client with the help of Flora Grubb Gardens. Back to Projects page Client Confidential BBA Team Bonnie Bridges Sarah Fucinaro Size 1,400 SF Contractor Saturn Construction Collaborators Structural: Semco Engineering Soils: Earth Mechanics Consulting Engineers Photography Sharon Risedorph Back to top

SAN FRANCISCO CHECKR HQ SF SAN FRANCISCO We created a humanized headquarters for this savvy young tech company, whose distinctive tastes and commitment to design values laid the foundation for an excellent project. Elegant, ordered architecture and interiors reflect the owners’ style and vision, and temper the orthogonal rigor of the building shell. Equitability, transparency and community are fundamental to Checkr and therefore to the design—the company’s core values and approach to services relies on these attributes, as does their friendly, smart, respectful company culture. With an entire financial district building under lease, the team implemented a strategic phased approach, gutting and redoing 4 floors totaling 70,000 SF over 3.5 years. We likened the 360-degree views to being in the treetops, and the idea that this perspective gives the staff a keen advantage as they work. An investment in custom acoustic ceiling panels replaced an odious drop ceiling, and the donut-shaped floor plan uses workstation pods to maintain openness while defining the space. Every floor has a destination break area and intentional programming to encourage Checkr’s teams to circulate freely and often between floors. The original lunch room is a multi-function space, serving “all hands on deck” meetings, as well as hosting outside mixers, events and ‘fireside chats’ while the final phase was being developed. Other amenities of the HQ include a yoga lounge, a library for quiet time (with real books and no cell phones), and phone booths for private conversation while ‘treetop’ viewing. We introduced a ‘jazz bar’ destination space—born out of our thinking about treetops and freedom, which led to birds, which, of course, led us to Charlie “Bird” Parker and jazz! Like a forest at night, the bar’s finishes, fixtures and furnishings are dark and moody, and include a service area with a hand-hammered aged brass island and coffee bar. The ping pong table was a top criteria for Checkr’s program, to enable the ace players on staff to keep up their game. In the final phase for Checkr’s SF HQ, we created a home for guests, staff and key public consisting of a Welcome Center and an “All The Hands” space. The Welcome Center uses tone-on-tone blue to provide an anchored entry sequence while expanding on “birds in the sky” by adding “clouds” as inspiration. The “All The Hands” space is hyper-flexible, divisible into three rooms for training, lounging and dining and expandable into a 300-person gathering space. Activity-Based Working (ABW) techniques were employed and integrated with a diverse set of experiences, space and places to provide a truly inclusive environment. As a nod to our hospitality work, we also considered the front of house as important as the back of house spaces, including a thoughtful kitchen prep space with a terrific view. Particular attention was also spent on the all-gender restroom, with custom accessories built locally by Hume Studio, reinforcing that everyone matters at Checkr. Also integral to the aesthetic, the art program throughout was developed as another expression of Checkr’s values and culture; featuring local artists to express their connection to the San Francisco Bay Area, and prison artists to underscore their commitment to authenticity. A portrait by TW FIVE was commissioned and made on site, sparking joy and daily reflection to passersby entering the lunchroom. Back to Projects page Client Checkr BBA Team Bonnie Bridges Ellen Yanisse Dave Ornvold Size 70,000 SF Contractor Principal Builders Inc. Collaborators Lighting: Hiram Banks Furniture: POD Office Photography Bruce Damonte Jasper Sanidad Back to top

SAN FRANCISCO STRIPE - PIONEER SAN FRANCISCO Occupying 23,000 sq. ft. of the landmark Pioneer Building , Studio BBA’s design for Stripe’s new headquarters provides a cohesive, connected spatial experience between three floors and two buildings, accomplished within a fairly tight budget and an extremely tight time frame. Stripe sought out Studio BBA to shepherd their complete process: space planning, Schematic Design, Design Development, interior graphics, furniture coordination, Construction Documentation, project administration, accessories, and art procurement. To relate to their densely-populated Mission District location, we realized their vision for an informal work environment that maintained its connection to the city and the needs of its urban dwelling staff, as well as the feel of their previously close-knit work environment (40 people in 4,000 sq. ft.). For us the project epitomizes “Jane Jacobs in an office”, an organically structured interior that will celebrate the beauty of growth over time. On arrival, Stripe’s waiting room is marked by intentional, subtle details in the signage and furnishings, enough to pique one’s interest while settling in. But bolder moves await inside. A new three-story blackened steel stair unifies the floors, providing a visual and physical relationship between spaces, enhanced with first and third floor garden lounges—one prim and proper, the other wild and overgrown—that invite exploration and connectivity. Myriad communal workspaces occur throughout the offices, from bar-height common tables to artful jungle lounges, and a series of progressively private ”code caves” provides the staff of software programmers a variety of code-writing environments. The ground-floor utilizes space that was formerly a garage for a professional kitchen, a rustic, comfortable lunchroom and an adjacent outdoor patio with covered bike rack structure, tumbled-brick pavers and café-style lighting. A library lounge flanks the busy lunchroom path, offering reprieve; the idea of a quiet introspective space; books as ornaments. On the third floor, a speak-easy bar provides a central gathering place and much-needed ‘time out’ for a work force that often burns the midnight oil. Back to Projects page Client Stripe BBA Team Bonnie Bridges Seth Boor Size 28,000 SF Contractor Peacock Construction Collaborators Structural: Structural Design Engineers Photography Bruce Damonte Back to top