Located on a small but prominent corner lot just steps away from Mountain View City Hall, this striking 3-level contemporary home is an exciting addition to the downtown streetscape.

The exterior features dramatic rooflines contrasted with a mix of floor-to-ceiling aluminum windows, smooth white stucco, and western red cedar. Window placement responds to the many existing mature trees on the site.

The residence is split amongst three levels connected by a central stair and elevator, with living and exercise rooms on the ground floor, his/her offices on the upper level sharing a balcony, and family bedrooms in the lower level.

The primary living area features a vaulted ceiling, with a tall wall of glass offering transparency to the private rear yard.

We love the challenge of odd-shaped lots, as they are often the driver of interesting forms and spaces. For this cul-de-sac lot in Los Altos with five angled property lines, we created an innovative design with two wings wrapping around a front entry courtyard.

The larger wing contains the garage and a light-filled main living area with high ceilings and a covered rear patio. The second wing features a master suite and four additional bedrooms. The home also has a south facing, triangular below-grade rear patio to bring light and air to the partial basement.

Generous living areas allow the home to function equally well as a hub for social gathering as well as private family life.

Our design for this home on a gently sloping oak-studded parcel in Saratoga, California features clean lines and a crisp white front façade. 

A gracious parking court with textured permeable paving offers great views to the south and introduces a playful water feature that is re-engaged in both the living and great rooms. 

The home has four additional en-suite bedrooms on their own level three feet above the public wing and primary suite,  affording mutual privacy and minimizing site grading.

Inside, a series of portals and terraces frame commanding views at multiple levels. Directly under the master suite is the home's basement fitness center, featuring an indoor pool with walkout patio, gym, and wet and dry saunas.

Our clients came to us with their vision of a light-filled two-story home that would balance requirements for living, working, and entertaining while reflecting their love of contemporary design.

Our response was to create walls of glass opening onto two outdoor spaces: a private rear yard and a contemplative central courtyard designed around a distinctive water feature. 

The home's front facade represents an abstracted yin-yang motif that repeats in the courtyard. A meandering pathway directs visitors to the front door, which opens onto the view of the interior light court.

Two other slot courtyards bring light, air, and greenery further into the house, with layers of glass dissolving the boundaries between interior and exterior space.

Retained by Stanford University to design off campus faculty housing in a quaint Palo Alto neighborhood named, appropriately,  “College Terrace”, our charge was to design homes for sale with more of a “custom” feel than your average spec home. To keep costs down, we developed prototype 2 story and 1 story plans for the relatively narrow lots Stanford had acquired, then created 6 unique exterior designs, one for each parcel.  

With a mix of 3 contemporary and 3 traditional designs, S-Squared provided not only architecture, but also interior and landscape design for each of the properties.  Compared to similar homes in the same price range offered to Stanford faculty, the S-Squared designs sold quickly.

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