TECH COMPANY SAN FRANCISCO When this client came to Studio BBA, they were new and growing — growing fast. Working with the co-founder, we established how their digital presence transcends into physical space and identity. The project grew into a 3-story redesign including new finishes to compliment a host of program: lounges, outdoor terraces, a gym, all-hands and dining area to accommodate catering for the entire office. Through our emergent process, we learned that focused and private work was pivotal to the company’s office culture and created the “Observable Universe” art piece to inspire a “Thinking Garden” as a place for introspection, study, discovery, and delight. The interior landscape program for the office became an obvious manifestation of the Thinking Garden, supported by an abstract and sophisticated nature-inspired palette. Starting during the Covid pandemic, the only thing that was certain was that the company was growing. Lead times quickly began to drive schedule, and the design team had to be nimble in making selections as available products quickly changed. This need to meet schedule fostered a trusting relationship where the Client approved look-and-feel of the various aspects of the office space, and Studio BBA was able to select alternates as needed. We standardized on a phone booth, providing fluidity for staff jumping from room to room, and to ease future purchasing needs. To support confidentiality and the meditative quietness of the open office, the floor plan boasts a nearly 3-to-1 ratio of people to conference rooms and call rooms. Back to Projects page Client Confidential Tech BBA Team Bonnie Bridges Vishnu Balusat Samantha Buckley Size 18,000 SF Contractor GCI General Contractors Collaborators Project Manager: Raise Plantings: AddLife Procurement: MGWest Photography Studio BBA Back to top

LITTLE GEM ON GROVE SAN FRANCISCO The concept for this 75-seat restaurant is casual, tranquil, honest, natural. Raising the bar for quick service food, Little Gem makes responsibly sourced and lovingly prepared cuisine accessible to the casual patron—while inherently omitting gluten, dairy and sugar. After a personal epiphany with the profound benefits of these dietary choices, partner Eric Lilavois, former COO with Thomas Keller Group, recruited former Keller chef Dave Cruz and Wall Street veteran John DeFazio to join him. Little Gem occupies the ground floor corner space in the newly constructed 400 Grove Street building, designed by Fougeron Architecture. To amplify the client’s concept, we chose materials that introduce a sense of natural warmth within the shell of concrete floors, walls, and ceiling. A green, hand-textured plaster wall offers a targeted burst of visual excitement. Maintaining a sense of transparency in food preparation was also critical to expressing the concept, dictating full visibility into the kitchen. Interior planters are placed in areas where the ample daylight streams through the courtyard and street window facades. Exterior, south-facing seating takes advantage of the Hayes Valley sunshine. Back to Projects page Client Little Gem BBA Team Bonnie Bridges Sarah Fucinaro Size 2,000 SF Contractor Architect of Record: Tecta Collaborators Millwork: Creative Cabinets & Design, Inc Photography Nicholas V. Ruiz Back to top

LORD STANLEY SAN FRANCISCO This new restaurant will be a welcoming, informal, cozy, comfortable space in which to share meals. Proprietors and chefs (and charming married couple) Carrie Puffer Blease and Rupert Blease aim to ensure that guests leave the restaurant with a feeling of well-being, satisfaction and nourishment from their surroundings as well as their meal. Studio BBA approached the design in keeping with this aim, and in synchronicity with the chefs’ approach to food—naturally elegant, carefully thought out, amazing ingredients and a lack of complication. We peeled away unnecessary layers in the two-story space to expose its simple raw beauty, and its tall north and east facing windows. A few minimal but interesting, honest and homey insertions were added to set the tone for the restaurant: a new front door with “Welcome” stenciled into the sidewalk, a poured concrete floor, a white custom-textured concrete bar, a modern steel railing, a sculptural lighting installation and custom wood tables. The owners commission their personal friend, textile artist Ashley Helvey , to create a wall-mounted felt piece with the texture of fur. Back to Projects page Client Lord Stanley BBA Team Bonnie Bridges Seth Boor Sarah Fucinaro Size 1,050 SF Contractor Upcycle Builders Collaborators Textile Installation: Ashley Helvey Photography Nick Ruiz Back to top

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

THUMBTACK UTAH UTAH We continue to help Thumbtack grow with the design of their Customer Support team center—a longstanding relationship that began in 2012 with full services for their bustling SF HQ. For the Utah center, they selected space in a new, streamlined building and challenged us to come up with a rigorously efficient yet playful approach that would evolve their brand, culture and style in a site-specific an distinct way. Draper is at the edge of Salt Lake’s flat, orthogonal valley in the foothills of the impressive Wasatch mountains, which soar suddenly and majestically up from the basin. This dramatic landscape provided a muse for our design of their inspiring workplace, which we creatively interpreted in the office plan via an undulating core. Surrounding this core, the open office area offers a clear logic between social and introverted functions, and curates sightlines to the beautiful setting. The interiors feature an energetic color scheme and residential-inspired furnishings. Back to Projects page Client Thumbtack BBA Team Bonnie Bridges Sarah Fucinaro Anand Sheth Size 45,000 SF Contractor Layton Construction Collaborators Architect of Record: Method Studio Photography Nicholas Swan Back to top

RUSSIAN HILL ADU SAN FRANCISCO As part of a 2-phase project, the Back House was renovated to be a stand-alone ADU. More details to come. Back to Projects page Client Confidential BBA Team Bonnie Bridges Vishnu Balunsat Size 800 SF Contractor Saturn Construction Collaborators Furnishings: By Owner Photography Samantha Buckley Back to top

1275 MISSION TI SAN FRANCISCO The building owner at 1275 Mission sought us out for our experience working with numerous design-savvy tenants (including Clever HQ just down the block.) They trusted us to create an office interior with its own voice and presence, while leaving room for the future tenant’s personality and culture. Part of this building’s history is somewhat of a mystery, with rumors of a speakeasy and other possibly dubious uses, which lent the project a level of fascination and intrigue. On the factual side, we do know that it served as various offices to support forms of technology (tools, sewing machines, early computers), so it seems fitting that a tech company might call it home. All this mystery inspired us to reveal only selective glimpses of the building’s original brick, concrete and wood. Unexpected discoveries during construction were spontaneously kept to underscore this idea, including a ghosted imprint of the old roof stair in the open workstation area. Black, white and gray surfaces add a sophisticated contrast to these exposed moments on the main and top floors, and provide a neutral backdrop for the new tenant’s brand palette. On the lower level we used a patterned layer of gray stucco to enliven the lounge area. And the former basement access from the sidewalk, referred to by the client as the “speakeasy stair”? …that space has been preserved in a secret cabinet for the new tenants to ponder over during happy hour. Back to Projects page Client Tenant Improvement BBA Team Bonnie Bridges Anand Sheth Size 9,000 SF Contractor Wynne Partners Collaborators Structural: Element Structural Engineer MEP: MHC Engineers Photography Nicholas V. Ruiz Back to top

LUMOSITY HQ SAN FRANCISCO Lumosity staff spend their days creating fun brain games to challenge core cognitive areas, such as memory and attention. They chose our absolute favorite Timothy Pflueger building in San Francisco for their headquarters, which has a gorgeous art deco exterior. In homage, we specified divided light windows to reference the building’s patterning, and set a more casual interior tone. With a strong, connected, collaborative culture in place, it was paramount that we create a community feel throughout the three floors of their new, larger offices, to maintain opportunities for employees to cross-pollinate, while looking ahead toward the company’s further growth. The first and second floors contain reception, work stations and small meeting spaces. Modularity drove the work station space planning, creating a rearrange-able puzzle of open desk spaces that can easily accommodate expansion. The uppermost floor is open and used for large meetings and as a lunchroom where the entire company can share a meal, with a bar for weekly happy hours. As you can imagine, this company has the need to use their brains creatively, in order to be in tune with their product. Special areas on this floor include a large collection of board games with space to store and to play, a library that serves as a quiet work area (including secret, rotating bookshelf door), and an area for ping-pong, foosball, and on-screen gaming. Back to Projects page Client Lumosity BBA Team Bonnie Bridges Seth Boor Sarah Fucinaro Anand Sheth Size 36,000 SF Contractor Skyline Construction Collaborators Interiors: Geremia Design Photography Matthew Millman Back to top

LITTLE GEM ON UNION SAN FRANCISCO Building on the success of their flagship on Grove Street, Little Gem came back to Studio BBA to design their second location on Union Street. Unlike a formulaic roll out, we guided the owners and chefs through a new process that allows for authentic character in Cow Hollow to emerge while staying true to the core design values we developed in Hayes Valley. The design goal was to transform the former burger restaurant from a dark cave to a light-filled, comfortable places that reflects Little Gem’s core values: natural, reliable, comfortable, with a focus on quality ingredients. Immediately we began to carve out opportunities for light and life to flood into the space; riffing off the iconic green plaster “volume” in Hayes Valley, we located an anchoring full-height tile wall, washed with daylight, between the main bar and the rear dining room. This separation allows for intimidate dining in a fast-casual setting, and artfully obscures a required structural element in the building. This powerful gesture inferred the spatial program: an efficient kitchen with a variety of welcoming dining experiences. The front dining room is bustling and active, with custom furniture and a wall sculpture made by the chef himself! The bar is refined, offering an elegant moment to engage with a bartender across marble and doug fir. The rear dining room is reserved for conversations, bookended by light-washed tile, a custom banquette with the perfect lumbar cushion in leather. The collaborative process is featured through custom art and steel plant shelves. It’s a gem of a restaurant, focusing on the pleasures of dining and the use of quality, local materials – a direct reflection of Little Gem’s ethos. Back to Projects page Client Little Gem BBA Team Bonnie Bridges Megan McGuinn Size 3,000 SF Contractor Upcycle Builders Collaborators MEP: MHC Engineers KEC: Trimark / Design West Partnership Photography Eric Rorer Photography Back to top

FARMERS & MERCHANTS BUILDING DTLA LOS ANGELES Studio BBA provided comprehensive architecture and interiors services for this adaptive reuse project—redeveloping the historic, long-abandoned Farmers & Merchants building in downtown LA’s Old Bank District into our client’s vision for a fantastic, new kind of dining emporium. With the building’s character and significance as our muse, we designed artful, structural and strategic interventions that would restore its glory and distinction for modern patrons. Entirely dedicated to the experience of enjoying food and drink, the interior offers a range of refined and casual environments. The main floor is a seamless integration of new and old, featuring the emporium’s flagship bakery and café near its main entry, and a central horseshoe bar with custom deck-mounted lighting gracefully anchoring the open plan. The fine dining restaurant has both communal and intimate seating; serviced in the front-of-house by an open kitchen, meat room and wine storage. A new 1,600 sq. ft. mezzanine borders the triple-height atrium, providing a singular vantage point of the grand volume. The existing second floor was redesigned with a speakeasy feel and flexible use in mind—the corner bar, cool lounge areas and three dining rooms can be used as restaurant overflow or for private events. Above it all, a restored 300-panel, vaulted skylight is engineered with natural and artificial lighting options. The expansive back-of-house is in a connected but separate building, through no small effort to resolve the structural and systems challenges. Nostalgia and authenticity are expressed throughout with well-considered materials and finishes. Historic preservation elements include moldings, pilasters, the mosaic floor, distressed plaster and the original “Verde” marble cladding. Sophisticated new finishes include brass inlaid tile, exposed steel and concrete, custom millwork, black steel, and walnut. Studio BBA specified complete furniture and decorative lighting packages to complete the tactile, rich environment. The primary complexities of rehabilitating this building centered on the need to introduce and integrate completely new systems in a structure where modern systems had never existed (mechanical, electrical, plumbing, structural, circulation, ADA, exits, fire separation). Through rigorous and thoughtful collaboration with expert engineers, consultants, preservationists and city agencies, Studio BBA arrived at a systems approach that worked for all parties. Back to Projects page Client Tartine LA, LLC BBA Team Bonnie Bridges Seth Boor Anand Sheth Size 19,719 SF Contractor Howard CDM Collaborators MEP: Henderson Engineers Structural: John Labib & Associates Acoustic/AV Consultant: FYXX Entertainment, Inc. Lighting: Hiram Banks Lighting Design Photography None Back to top