San Francisco-based transdisciplinary studio Spiegel Aihara Workshop (SAW) shared new images of an extensive home renovation project of a 1930s Spanish Revival home in the Bay Area's Marina neighborhood. 

Aptly named the "Wraparound House," the project was commissioned by a couple looking for their home to include increased indoor and outdoor space for their family without sacrificing surrounding views of the Bay. While the project includes horizontal and vertical expansion to engross six bedrooms and additional interior space totaling 4,738 square feet, the house also needed land stabilizing beneath the home. 

SAW noted that the Marina neighborhood site is historically known for being built on a former landfill and impacted by soil contamination due to a gas plant spill decades prior. Due to these issues, the design team explained the importance of excavating 4 to 6 feet of soil in order to remediate the home's base. 

According to the firm, "The site, in particular, is in a liquefaction zone in which sand and silt would take on the characteristics of a liquid during an earthquake." In order to remedy the site, the team excavated the top layer of soil and lifted the house to install a thicker, foundational mat slab. This freed up the load and shear-bearing walls for redistribution, revealing several new configuration schemes at the ground floor level in the process.

Dan Spiegel, architect and founding partner of SAW, makes note that, "Rather than simply building upon the new ground, we saw the challenge as redistributing the ground vertically across the site, throughout the building. While many buildings have terraces, balconies, or things like that, we set out to maintain a complete continuity of a new ground across the entire house, ensuring that every roof was not so much the top of something but the bottom of something – a new ground."

Keen on maintaining a flow between the indoor and outdoor spaces of the home, the interior and exterior spiral staircases offer "connectedness" at each level. The core of the home's floor plan is formed in its interior by a central spiral staircase. The existing 1930s archways were used as design inspiration. The firm pointed out that during the design process, the curved arches were "cut up and laid flat so that the interior corners are smooth rounded surfaces that encircle the central, sculptural stair at the heart of the house." Thus creating the basis for the home's "wraparound" name.

SAW explained that its landscaping had to be done from scratch as a result of the necessary remediation. The need for new, replacement soils were needed to help support new plant life. According to landscape architect and founding partner Megumi Aihara, an artificial turf had to be installed above the lot’s pre-existing rockfill left by PG since "soils were not already in place." 

Aihara completed the backyard arboreal touches, including an October Glory Red Maple, California Fescue, and Russian Sage. Aihara commented, "they were planted as soon as the ground floor was demolished, and we could safely crate in the large trees through the open construction site."

View project drawings and additional images of the home's interior design by Heidi Kim of White Spaces Design.