Redpoint Ventures came to IwamotoScott with the aim of establishing a new urban presence for their highly regarded Silicon Valley-based venture capital firm at South Park in San Francisco. Part of the contextual legacy of this desirable locale is that the Wired magazine was founded in the vicinity.
Our design is tailored to meet this aim, creating a bespoke new workplace and event space for them within a 4,200sf raw brick and timber ground floor space fronting South Park in San Francisco. Four main design elements anchor the new space and act as a complimentary set of custom fabricated components in dialogue with each other – these include:
1) A 35 foot long Douglas Fir communal work desk supported by a steel lattice frame cantilevered from two of the existing timber columns.
2) A built-in yet modular and reconfigurable tufted felt sofa lounge at reception.
3) A ceiling installation over the work desk made from climbing rope in a form interpreted as an abstracted mountain range.
4) a freestanding work bar in front of an existing brick arch niche and counter-weighted door, built with a steel plate wrapper surrounding a staggered stack of Douglas Fir timbers. The new bar's brick archway orginally acted as one of the doorways linking neighboring warehouses.
Floor finishes are mainly comprised of cleaned-up and exposed existing concrete slab, with a ground and polished finish. The space is softened with area carpets defining the lounge, workdesk and meeting rooms. Timber framed ceilings in the main open space and the main conference room are left exposed. A masked area of this exposed ceiling is painted white over the workdesk.
The main lighting for the space is designed as a series of linear up-lighted voids/bands between existing timber joists, forming a staccato rhythm down the full length of the space. These LED uplight joist spaces, as well as the unlit ones, are lined with painted Tectum panels and an integral acoustic solution for the space.
