Like many large cities, San Francisco has very limited parking. Many home owners have opted to remove part of the ground floor of their houses and convert it to a garage. However, recent changes to city code prohibit making drastic external alterations to historic properties. The engineers working with the owners of this home in the Haight-Ashbury neighborhood came up with a rather clever solution: turn a bay window into a garage door. From the Beausoleil architectural blog:
The bottom floor of the building, a historic Victorian apartment house, had a hodgepodge of storage rooms, utility spaces and an ancient studio apartment shoehorned between a dozen wood posts. The original brick foundations were underfoot. The project structural engineer, Don David of Double D Engineering determined that as part of upgrading the seismic strength of the structure they could get rid of the columns and the partitions, build new concrete footings, and create a clean open garage space.
So, the house gets four parking spaces for the price of ten feet of street frontage, and a more structurally sound home all while keeping a classic look. And it’s even got a great top-secret James Bondian flare to it. What’s not to love?
(Beausoleil architecture via Boing Boing)
Published: Apr 21, 2011 11:33 am