Perched on a double lot overlooking downtown San Francisco, Feldman Architecture set out to maximize this home’s indoor and outdoor connection. Emphasizing shared space for inhabitants with young children, whilst working with the structure’s original, non-conforming footprint and orientation, this Urban Retreat is a product of ambitious sustainability goals and inventive modern design.

The Feldman Architecture Urban Retreat Deserves a LEED Platinum Certification

With the inclusion of innovative rain and site water reuse, alongside solar energy harvesting technology, Feldman Architecture prioritizes their obligations to respect and preserve the natural environment, drawing upon past wisdoms and contemporary building science, in order to create structures that exist in perfect harmony. Combined with the goal of exceeding industry baseline environmental standards on all of their projects, the Feldman Architecture philosophy serves as a catalyst in their movement toward more ecologically and ethically responsible forms of construction.

Blurring the lines between a perceived indoor and outdoor space, Feldman Architecture constructed the main living area across the left side of the property, allowing greenspace to crawl through and connect the entire site. Meanwhile, its upper level perpendicularly spans the width of the site as a low hanging floating bar, maximizing square footage and allowing both the inhabitants and the public to enjoy the breathtaking vista by minimizing the vertical scale of the home.

Clad in a thoughtful mixture of white brick and rich California Walnut casework, the Urban Retreat presents contrasting themes of light and dark, warm and modern, which seamlessly connect its interior and exterior living spaces. With green roofs filtering and capturing rainwater, this residence stores and facilitates a constant cycle of clean water to be used in the home’s laundry and bathroom systems. Going further, the greywater collected from the home is then used to irrigate landscaping, and the cycle is refreshed.