We are located in the Dogpatch neighborhood of San Francisco, in a 1933 mattress factory building. It is a perfect building for the kind of firm we are – raw concrete walls and exposed timber trusses, with high volumes and enough square footage to house our architectural practice, fabrication shop, and even a work-week apartment for Olle. The practice has always been very diverse – we have designed homes, restaurants, wineries, corporate headquarters, distilleries, hotels, apartment buildings, bars, lobbies, and even San Francisco’s bus shelters. We describe our style as “nature-inspired modernism,” and we strive for elegant, simple solutions in our work. We like materials with substance – wood, stone, steel; materials with heft and texture – really the opposite of veneer. For us the making of architecture is a collaborative act; between ourselves and especially with our clients – while we aim for poetry we also pride ourselves on making buildings that work very, very well. The work is quite personal – to our clients, to the site, and to us; and to that end we have always had a fabrication shop as part of our practice. It is a place to experiment with materials and details; it is a place to build things. The shop is a way to emphasize the notion of craft in our projects – the unique piece handmade for just that moment. This enables us to at times act a little more like a sculptor, where the process of making begins to inform the end result, so that the pieces really do end up being one-of-a-kind. The act of making is different from just drawing an idea – no matter the cost the mark of the hand makes the piece a kind of gift, unique and personal to that client. It is an inseparable part of our design practice.