ELLISON RESIDENCE
Lundberg Design
This project was an extensive remodeling of a 1961 William Wurster house in San Francisco, for which the client requested a show-stopper pied à terre for city life and entertaining.
Lundberg Design
This project was an extensive remodeling of a 1961 William Wurster house in San Francisco, for which the client requested a show-stopper pied à terre for city life and entertaining.
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The exterior was re-clad in a combination of glass wall and crystallized glass tile with stainless steel elements. The vertical element on the front facade is composed of the exposed legs and optic fiber core of a stainless steel cruciform column. The optic fiber provides a stripe of colored light on both exterior and interior sides of the wall. |
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The rough-hewn limestone garden wall provides textural contrast. The recessed front gate extends a figurative welcome when electronic unlocking triggers a clearing of its electrostatic glass. The hole in the garden wall accommodates a pivot on which a stainless steel beam is supported. That beam is supported on the other end by a cable suspended from an overhead beam. |
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A 10,000 pound boulder in the entry court rests on the pivoting beam and swings gently when nudged. Water runs down the cable to a bowl carved into the boulder, and overflows into a fluid recreation of the boulder bottom, which was amputated to serve as a cast for the recessed bronze reservoir. A glass trellis was provided for regrowth of the existing wisteria plant. |
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The original courtyard walls—obscured glass in a rectangular grid—were
replaced with dynamic clear glass forms that extend light and access to a
stunning bay view deep into the house. The main courtyard is paved in a checkerboard of river rock, baby's tears, and stone. |
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A cast-glass wall straddles the knife-edge of an infinity pool in the main courtyard. Cast glass was also stacked in a frame for a pivot door at the front entry. Frames by Lundberg Design. Glass by John Lewis Glass. |
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The checkerboard steps down the steep slope of the main courtyard. Fledgling bamboo trees will grow into a pleasing screen in front of the neighbor's wall. |
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Careful detailing and construction ensure that custom fabrications are as weather-tight as they are beautiful. | |
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The straight-forward framed-glass of the original rear wall was replaced with a syncopated rhythm of glass articulated by a fiber-optic-lit cruciform column, steel windows and french doors, and a stainless steel panel that angles over the entire four-floor height of the wall. | |
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The colored light at the core of the cruciform column is transmitted through the glass to both exterior and interior. |
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The structural column at the corner was removed to maximize the view toward the Golden Gate Bridge. | |
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The James Bond touch that the photographer missed: The lowest level of the house has a small terrace stepping down to a steeply-sloped rear yard. The stone-paved lower landing retracts under the stairs to reveal a hinoki-lined hot tub. |