DDesign retailer Blu Dot recently completed a major new showroom store at the foot of Potrero Hill in San Francisco. Created by reimagining and reshaping a pair of vacant buildings, the new, neighborhood-friendly adaptation offers a simplified, soft-modern backdrop for the Minneapolis-based manufacturer and designer of modern furniture.

Following its 2013 award winning design of a previous San Francisco retail location at 560 Valencia Street, Blu Dot design director Maurice Blanks and his visual merchandising team worked with the Office of Charles F. Bloszies FAIA to create the new Blu Dot San Francisco.

For its new location, Blu Dot selected a site at 99 Missouri which included the former home of Arch, a beloved graphics supply company. The Bloszies architecture-and-engineering team combined that space’s footprint with a former auto body shop next door, transforming the original concrete structures into a new envelope for Blu Dot’s store planners and interior designers.

Bloszies and Blu Dot organized the removal of superfluous bracing and internal walls to open up the interior, and eliminated a partially finished false façade at the corner. The team enlarged window openings to create an organized exterior rhythm and allow in more sunlight. Bloszies designed a board-formed concrete parapet extension to provide a uniform horizontal cap, creating a simplified modern profile.

“We also designed steel window frames popping out of the façade like oversized Tiffany windows, fashioned to echo the scale of industrial window openings found on nearby buildings,” explains Bloszies.

The building also boasts a 1,200-square-foot patio and something every San Franciscan dreams of — a parking lot. Inside, it was conceived to be “light, bright and airy.”

The interior design, conceived with a minimal sensibility of an art gallery, serves as an armature in which to display Blu Dot’s product line. Floors are terraced to be flush with exterior grades at different levels, finished with unvariegated wood flooring or polished concrete. Interior fixtures are integrated with structural elements resulting in a simple, crisp interior setting, with walls painted white to function as background for the pieces on display. Plinths built on the interior side of the pop-out windows allow product displays at eye level for street side passersby.

“Ever since we opened a store in San Francisco in 2013, the city has been a key market for us. When our lease was up in the Mission, it only made sense for us to go bigger and better in San Francisco,” says Maurice Blanks, Blu Dot cofounder. “Working again with Chuck and his team on the new store was seamless and the end result is gorgeous. We love seeing longstanding, loyal clients in the new space and are enjoying meeting new friends and neighbors, all with the goal to fulfill our mission to inspire more creative ways of living through good design.”

(Photos/Images: Mariko Reed / Courtesy of Blu Dot and the Office of Charles F. Bloszies FAIA)

“The goal of this transformation is to provide Blu Dot with an architectural expression consistent with its furniture design ethos, while at the same time ensuring that it suits the long-established industrial character of this part of the Potrero Hill district,” adds Bloszies. “In this way, Blu Dot ingratiates itself with its neighbors while creating a memorable, unmistakable home for the Blu Dot brand.”

In addition to its online shop, Blu Dot has retail stores in the US, Mexico, and Australia, with new locations slated to open by Spring of 2023.

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Most non-residential projects are delivered late. And then there’s 1095 Market Street in San Francisco, an office-building-to-hotel conversion that was supposed to take 18 months but for a number of reasons – some related to COVID, some for architectural reasons – last spring, five years ago, it was finally completed after the project started.

“It would take me three hours to explain why,” laughed Todd Pesavento, project manager at Skanska USA Building, the general contractor for the project, who also provided the design and construction of mechanical, electrical, fire safety and historical elements. BD + C interviewed Pesavento last week with Jason Wright, Associate Designer and Conservation and Preservation Specialist at Page & Turnbull, who did the majority of the historic restoration of this 115-year-old building.

Pesavento explained that the building, also known as the Grant Building, had “numerous” structural and foundation problems that took a year to install to redesign and relocate. An outer wooden pillar was so worn that it had to be replaced from the 8th floor to the roof six floors above. This replacement also required the removal and replacement of historical bricks. There was also more lead paint in the building than expected that needed refurbishment.

BAR Architects, the architect of the project, had to remodel the storefront on the building’s ground floor and recreate the building’s wooden window system, which is now soundproof and weatherproof.

The building’s lavish brick facade had to be cleaned, repaired and, in some cases, replaced.

Pesavento noted that four of the building’s original terracotta pilasters were covered in multiple layers of paint that were removed. These pilasters were used as models to recreate nine additional pilasters made of glass fiber reinforced concrete (GFRC), each with seven components.

Wright added that the bricks and terracotta in the center of the building of many different shapes needed to be cleaned and, if necessary, repaired or replaced, which meant tedious color matching.

REPLACING THE BUILDING’S DECORATIVE FLOWER

One of the largest parts of this historic restoration was the reconstruction of missing cornices, which Wright said had been cut off from the building in the 1950s. Page & Turnbull never found the original drawings, but found high-resolution images of the building (with its cornices) in local and state libraries. To recreate the cornices, Skanska and his subs had to work with 3D printed models.

The hotel has several common areas for social and professional purposes.

The finished product is now a Yotel microhotel with 203 keys, the brand’s first micro in the western United States. Features such as self-check-in machines, loft-style sleeping arrangements, smart TVs, and public coworking and meeting rooms are popular with millennial travelers and professionals in the up-and-coming neighborhood. A rooftop bar and a restaurant and bar on the ground floor are open to the public.

Pesavento said the Synapse Development Group, the developer of this project, was “very hands-on and dedicated” during the design phase. The biggest challenge with this adaptive reuse was the mechanical system as the bathrooms in most office buildings are in the middle of the building. All lines had to be laid for the hotel. Pesavento added that the hotel was designed to avoid the existing interior structures (e.g. pillars) so the execution “required a lot of on-site coordination”.

The converted building, which actually lacked the floor and the crown, was “now timeless,” said Pesavento.

The conversion of a former office building into a hotel required extensive installation and electrical work.

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SAN FRANCISCO (BCN) – New buildings must collect and recycle much more water than existing buildings need after the San Francisco board of directors approved new regulations on Tuesday.

The ordinance more than doubles the amount of water that new large buildings must collect and reuse on-site, said its author, supervisor Rafael Mandelman. He said it is also directing the public utility commission to develop a plan to expand the supply and use of recycled water in the city.

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“This summer of intense drought and terrible forest fires reminds us that the climate crisis is now and will not go away on its own,” he said. “We have to reduce CO2 emissions drastically and quickly, but even if we pursue goals of zero CO2 emissions for our city and our world, the reuse and recycling of water will be increasingly necessary for our survival.”

According to a press release from Mandelman’s office, the ordinance was approved by a union official, Larry Mazzola, Jr., executive director of UA Local 38 Plumbers and Pipefitters.

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“Reusing water from locally treated gray water systems for toilets and other non-potable applications is a proven way to reduce the demand for potable water as California faces persistent water scarcity,” said Mazzola. “This regulation is a step in the right direction and will have a clearly positive effect on the jobs of our qualified and trained workforce in order to create sustainable job opportunities in the future.”

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SAN JOSE (CBS SF) – It’s been years since the Bay Area faced drought conditions. While some counties are trying to introduce water use restrictions, some communities are looking for creative ways to recycle water.

When Ashley Shannon does a load of laundry, her garden and fruit trees get super soaked.

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“I like the fact that I use it once to wash my clothes and then a second time so I essentially make more life out of it,” she said.

Shannon is a Santa Clara Valley Water District employee who recently installed a gray water system in her washing machine. Outlet pipes that would normally take wash water into the sewers have been rerouted to lead outside and around their garden. Valves installed in the ground let the water seep out to irrigate your plants and trees.

It’s a simple but effective system. According to Shannon, there are many benefits including saving water and saving money over time while keeping her landscape getting the water it needs.

“I use soap that is biodegradable. I use no fragrance soap, not a lot of salts. The soap I use is gray water system grade and easy to find, ”said Shannon.

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Their system only cost $ 750 to be installed by a contractor and did not require approval from the City of San Jose.

There are many home improvement plans and videos available online. Other systems that also plug into sinks and showers can cost up to $ 5,000 and require approval because they modify the home’s plumbing.

“It’s a matter of people choosing it because it just makes sense,” said Alan Hackler, a landscaping contractor who installed Shannon’s system.

According to Hackler, the return on investment is better when more people live under one roof.

“Some houses have multi-generation families, they have grandparents and children who live there. These are perfect scenarios because they generate tons of gray water,” Hackler said.

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Currently, the Santa Clara Valley Water District has incentives, including a $ 400 discount on laundry for scenic gray water systems.

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