הבית השחור בסן פרנסיסקו || פרויקטים

Project name: The Silver Lining House
Project type: Residential
Project location: Bernal Heights, San Francisco, California, USA
Architect: Mork-Ulnes Architects
Project design team: Casper Mork-Ulnes, Lexie Mork-Ulnes, Phi Van Phan, Gregoriy Ladigin
Interior designer: Alison Damonte
Project consultants • Construction Manager: Raffi Nazarian
 Landscape Architect: Terremoto
 Photographs: Bruce Damonte

הבית החדש שתוכנן על ידי Mork-Ulnes Architects, עם עיצוב פנים מאת אליסון דמונטה, ממוקם בברנל הייטס, בית מגורים בשכונה בסן פרנסיסקו, בקצה הדרומי של העֶמֶק. כפי שהוכח בפרויקטים רבים של מורק-אולנס אדריכלים, סגנון מסורתי מתמזג עם סגנון עכשווי מובהק בפרספקטיבה שבה נמצאות טכניקות מחקר ובנייה פורמליות כחלק בלתי נפרד מיצירת תוצאה מקורית וחדשנית בסביבתו, תוך שהוא מעורר גם חקירה נוספת. החלק החיצוני של הבית מציג גימור שחור בולט, המסמל את לידתו מחדש לאחר תקרית שריפה, תוך יצירת רקע אבסטרקטי שובה לב שמשפר את הקולקציה שאצרה בקפידה מעצבת הפנים אליסון דמונטה.


Photographs: Bruce Damonte


Photographs: Bruce Damonte


Photographs: Bruce Damonte

A home for art and experimentation.The three-story home, designedby Mork-Ulnes Architects, was conceptualized as a container for the couple’s art and furniture collection, and a laboratory fortheir work. The project’s brief was a 3 bedroom 3.5 bath homethat showcases scenic views of San Francisco’s twin peaks andwesterly sky, the intimate view of Bernal Heights neighborhood,and highlights the couple’s impressive art and furniture collection.In 2010, interior designer Alison Damonte and architectural photographer Bruce Damonte purchased a modest wood residence more than a century old in San Francisco’s Bernal Heights neighborhood. As the years passed, the couple slowly began the extensive process of renovation. A friend and early champion of Bruce’s photography career, architect Casper Mork-Ulnes, founder of San Francisco and Oslo-based Mork-Ulnes Architects, was a natural choice to lead the redesign.


Photographs: Bruce Damonte


Photographs: Bruce Damonte

Photographs: Bruce Damonte


Photographs: Bruce Damonte

The new house shares a similar silhouette with its gabled neighbors that line the steep streets and reinterprets Victorian design elements into modern features such as siding patterns and graphical fenestration. While replicating the roof forms, entry portal/stoop, and massing of the Victorian homes, the new house also breaks from tradition with a black-painted facade and ribbon windows that visually connect the interior of the house to the neighborhood.As demonstrated in numerous projects by Mork-Ulnes Architects, tradition is reinterpreted here with a decidedly contemporary perspective, where formal research and construction techniques are integral to creating an original and innovative outcome that engages its surroundings while also prompting further inquiry. The volume of the home is thoroughly modern; abstracted and simplified, it is a large geometric object giving a hint to the architectural language and collection of objects inside. The interiors of the house were designed to create a vitrine for the couple’s art andfurniture collection, and a space to showcase their interest in materials and textures. The house’s central curved and sculpted staircase allows light from the third-floor skylight to funnel and refract down to the ground floor, creating an ambiance that  reflects the couple’s creative spirit. A unique program. Initially conceived as a gallery for art and furniture and a laboratory for decorative experiments for two design enthusiasts, this 3 bedroom 3.5 bath home also includes a disco-inspired music parlor, a photography studio, and a penthouse great room which opens to views of both a San Francisco panorama and its Victorian neighborhood. A central curved and sculpted staircase allows light from the third floor skylight to funnel and refract down to the ground floor with half-polished chrome slats bouncing mirrored reflections around the stairwell — a request of Alison, to mimic the tambour clad pods, mirror slats, and custom resin tiles.


Photographs: Bruce Damonte


Photographs: Bruce Damonte


Photographs: Bruce Damonte


Photographs: Bruce Damonte

Mirror is used in playful elements like a black disco ball, but also for spatial and light-generating effects with the stair slatting, underneath kitchen cabinets which appear to float, on a ceiling in a powder room, and over a tambour clad pod in the great room. Already with fantastic city views from the original home’s second level, the owners wanted to capitalize on the even better views from the new third level and celebrate the vast views west of San Francisco’s Mission and Twin Peaks, and east towards the more intimate view of Bernal Heights. Rigorous architecture, vibrant interiors. The interior architecture, a collaboration between Mork- Ulnes Architects and the studio of Alison Damonte, is also based on objects. Mork-Ulnes set the formal and volumetric stage with an organization of simplified objects, allowing Alison Damonte to outfit them with materials and finishes in line with her vision for the interior.

A house designed with sustainability in mind
The house is built with sustainability in mind, with over 65% of the original vertical wall structure preserved and re-used. It has operable glazed walls on the upper floor to allow complete cross-ventilation, and the central stair void acts as a chimney circulating air through the whole building. Operable exterior solar shading provides respite from the home’s sunny southern exposure. The house features solar panels covering the roof that provide electric energy to the house, supply a power wall battery with energy to use during peak surge hours and feed power back to the grid when not in use. The project also has highperformance energy-efficient windows and low-energy emitting appliances.


Photographs: Bruce Damonte


Photo Credit: Mork-Ulnes Architects


Photo Credit: Mork-Ulnes Architects


Photo Credit: Mork-Ulnes Architects