It’s already mid January, so before we get too much further along into the year, we wanted to note some great press we and our clients received at the end of 2024.

Our friends and clients over at Copper have been receiving so many good reviews on their induction stoves, including this one came in from the NYT right before Christmas.

Aside from it being a great stove functionally…. Our walnut knobs are touted as the beautiful design hit with all their reviews and customers. Made in our shop here in Oakland by the stove full!

Then back at the end of October, The Interval at The Longnow received two great press pieces. This is a bar, event space, gallery and office we designed and built out 10 years ago (!!) and it is still going strong. Last year they decided to do some upgrades, which we were able to help them out with.

The Interval always gets noted as the best cocktail bar - which we like to think has a bit to do with the ambiance we created (though no doubt it is the quality craft cocktails they produce!). So they were mentioned again in this SF Chronical piece for being one of the top 10 bars in San Francisco.

Then, just on it’s heals, 7x7 magazine released an article on the 10 year anniversary of The Interval, the interior refresh and the parent entity The Longnow’s mission for the years to come. We were honored to continue to be a part of that story.

Photos by Anthony Thornton

We do interiors. But sometimes we do exteriors too!

January here in the Bay Area is bright and sunny this week, so we took the opportunity to swing by a project that just finished. Designed in Autodesk Revit, refined in Fusion and then laser cut, CNC bent & powder coated a beautiful striking green. We designed these modern awning shades give much needed shade to the inhabitants within.

Our client wanted a facade refresh to better match the neighborhood, but also needed some respite from the sun coming into the building through the large windows.

The design solution we executed was a painting refresh on the exterior with the addition of these custom awnings designed and rationalized and color selected by our shop. The two story downtown Oakland commercial building renovation adds some modern detailing to this otherwise plain facade.

The surrounding buildings are either very new and modern or historic. Now this commercial unit fits comfortably into the neighborhood with its own charm.

These cut outs throughout the awnings not only add cool visual shadow affects, they also serve a function. The slits allow rain and wind to move through freely and create a lighter awning, which will have more longevity on the building.

A beautiful refresh to start off a new year! Want some help to refresh your space? Drop a us line, we’d love to work with you.

We were visiting a very creative office interior we’ve been working on in SF earlier this week and snapped a few videos to show off this fun project. A creative team needs a creative space that feels like the most amazing home, and that is exactly what we’ve tried to provide…

A Tiki bar on the outside deck, a rolling library ladder to access the ceiling high game shelf, product display hidden under glass table tops, chalk board walls for staff artist drawings, a custom tiny car made into a bar table and circus inspired acoustic pendant lights. That is just the office common area at Double Fine Productions, an office renovation by BWC Architects.

The BWC fabrication shop has been a busy place these last few months. This recent project for the Autodesk Gallery at 1 Market in SF was completed by our design and fabrication team and installed last month by our installation team. It looks striking and draws people in as the first display they see in the Gallery.

Working with the core gallery group at Autodesk, we created the layout, flow and piece placements for this prominent gallery installation. This is the first installation seen as one enters the gallery. To meet the demands of this high profile foundation piece, we provided comprehensive detail drawings to the client of the displays from every angle and of every detail as well as 3D walk throughs and visualization.

After several months of design and fabrication decisions with the client, the final display was ready for fabrication. A clean aesthetic and eye catching focus on the main engine piece, with clear details around the smaller complimentary parts. Mean while in the fabrication shop, we worked on the smaller pieces….

Lifting the main engine display into the air with this curved stainless steel arm, the 3D printed piece filled with interactive LEDs is the strong anchor point for the Gallery. The clean welding job and brushed stainless keeps the attention on the engine 3D print and off the support hardware.

While we worked with the Gallery team to finalize the layout and details for the display, our production shop worked on assembling these imperfectly shaped 3D print parts into seamless unit that would read as a full 3D printed piece. Our craftsmen worked many days on these fine detail working the pieces by hand to smooth out the rough surface and aline the seams.

The onsite installation team packed, unpacked and installed the piece.

At the production shop our design team created and manipulated the code to finalize the lighting to the clients specifications.

You can see the full project page here.

It has been a busy summer and we're non stop fabrication at the Secret Weapon Workshop all day long, most every day. This was just last week... and there is more coming down the line!

Our fabrication shop in Oakland uses multiple CNC machines, 3D printers and traditional building tools for all our various projects.

Feel free to stop by sometime and check out the workshop… 2998 Ford Street, Oakland, CA

Jr. Digital Fabricator-2024

(Entry Level Position)

Company Introduction

BWC Architects is an Oakland-based design-build architecture studio with a focus on creative renovations for Bay Area commercial and residential clients.  Located 2998 Ford St., Oakland. 

Job Description

We are currently offering full time &  part time positions.

This role will be highly involved in the production of custom furniture and interior elements for our clients. Creative problem solving and self directed focus are key in this position, as well as an interest in being a multidisciplinary fabricator and learning new skills as we never make the same thing twice.

The perfect candidate is an up in coming,  talented fabricator and crafts person  who’s excited about fabrication, different materials, CNC manufacturing as well as hands on assembly and craft. We are passionate about quality and precision, and you should be too. You should have a desire to work in a fast paced production environment where your main job will be hands on making parts, assembling or finishing pieces.

Main responsibilities will  include running CNC routers, woodworking with hand tools, sanding, finishing, assembling and minimal onsite install. We also require daily clean up of the shop space and keeping a tidy workspace.  

This position will work in a small team and  solo. 

Versatility is key in this fast paced and highly creative industrial shop environment.

We’re willing to train the right person on the various technologies, but applicants should have had experience with CNC machines and fabrication, assembly, sanding, working with hand tools and working with CAD/CAM software and/or 3D modeling software. 

Responsibilities:

• Operating  CNC machines (after training)

• Sanding/ finishing  parts & assembly

• Moving  / lifting raw materials for job production

• Maintaining a clean and organized work area & helping maintain the shop

• Following shop safety standards and company operations manuals.

Required Skills:

• Some experience in fabrication, construction, millwork, woodworking, or equivalent required.

• Some demonstrated interest and ability in CNC routing and digital fabrication.

• Attention to detail, organized, team player, and self motivated.

• Comfortable working online for scheduling, task management, product info, email, chatting, etc.

• Comfortable working in a dynamic, creative, fast paced and friendly team environment.

• Ability to self direct & do research about materials, assembly, sanding & finish techniques on new materials 

Benefits/ Pay Scale:

• PTO plan (full time positions).

• Medical and dental insurance (full time positions).

• $22-$26 / hour depending on experience

• Paid overtime hours

Bonus Points:

• Casual office environment of serious professionals doing highly creative work

• Flexible work schedule

• Team-oriented work space where you will have a voice and be highly involved in the creative projects

Please Apply with Resume and work examples to jillian (AT) BWCarchitects.com

The Temple at Burning Man has always been special. For those that don't know about it, a quick story: at the Burning Man festival it's become a tradition to build a temple, a non-denominational space for remembrance of those recently lost, celebration, and worship in your own way. A sort of architectural competition, artists submit their ideas for it, and the winning design gets built by a large crew of volunteers working hard to bring it to life (and raise the money to help pay for it all!).

During the festival people leave memorial notes and objects in it, people get married in it, various services are held in it, and then the day after the Man burns the Temple is burned too. When the Man burns, it's a huge raucous party; when the Temple burns, it's totally somber, with many thousands of people watching in respectful silence. It's quite powerful.

Since it's volunteer built, and many of the same people volunteer year after year to help, a Temple Builder's Guild has grown to help bring the winning idea to life. I helped with the temple back in 2011 and 2013, and decided to get involved again this year. The initial design called for a pair of monumental hands out in front. The team needed help making these real, which was something right up my alley to be able to help with.

Image from the Temple of Together website

First I took the initial Sketchup concept model, brought it into Blender, and remodeled it into several different iterations until we arrived at the final form. Blender is just a fantastic tool for quickly modeling complex organic models and working through different design ideas. 

As we were reviewing the timeline, budget, and ease of constructability (and burnability!) of the design, we eventually decided together as a team to go with a more faceted design that could be quickly produced from CNC-cut flat panels of plywood. While we loved the form of the final design, making smooth curved forms would have taken more time, and thinner plywood or other options for skinning them quickly could become a hazard when burned due to them flying off more easily in the wind. So the hands were remodeled to a final faceted form for the hand and front, with a lattice on the backside to match the temple's outer walls.

Next step was to make it real, and for that I used Autodesk Fusion. While Blender is awesome, it's not really a CAD platform, and since most of the hands were going to be made from CNC-cut plywood I wanted to use a tool best suited for quickly making manufacture-ready models. So I imported the mesh from Blender, turned the mesh into a solid using T-splines, and then got to work on the internal structures. 

Fusion enables me to do simple FEA calculations so I know my designs are plausible and structurally sound, and the parametric solid modeling tools made pretty quick work of all the complex profiles required to 'flat pack' parts of the hands. Then once all the parts and panels were figured out, everything was exported to flat DXFs for various different shops to cut the parts on CNC routers. It also allowed for the team to participate collaboratively online together, to where non-CAD using volunteers helping with the build could review the latest models directly from a web browser. Since I too am just a volunteer, and don't have a lot of extra time, it was critical for me to use tools that empowered me to do the most work in the least amount of time, and to automate as much as possible. 

A lot of thought was put into trying to make this complex build as easy as possible, as it's being done mostly using volunteers of various skill levels. We used a numbering system to help label every single one of the hundreds of parts and help direct where that part was supposed to go within the overall structure. We also aimed to make many of the parts not require CNC production, as that can become a major bottleneck with a project that has a large pool of manual labor volunteers but only a few CNC machines available to it. So many parts were designed in a way that they could be produced either by CNC or with just a track saw and some careful measurements. And the overall design had to be very forgiving for tolerances, so it could use whatever donated materials and volunteer labor were available. Finally while it was going to be largely preassembled, it had to be made into several large logically chunks that could both fit onto a flatbed truck, get safely lifted into place, and quickly connected together, as the build team only has a few weeks to put the entire temple together once they get to the playa.

Another thing that was a huge time saver for me was Fusion's newish semi-automated shop drawing tools, where it would largely make all the shop drawings not only for the assemblies, but for every part too. 

We also helped speed things up by CNC cutting all the fabric for the various ‘lanterns’ that adorned the structure, adding light and detail throughout. You can read all about that on Secret Weapon Workshop, our fabrication company website.

The final hand structures were 35’ tall, fully freestanding (they don’t touch!), and really looked great along with an overall stunning temple.

Image from Rand Larson of Morningstar Productions

And last night it was all burned to the ground, turned to ash and dust.

Thanks again to the Temple Builder's Guild for letting me help out with this awesome project. Honored to have been included. And looking forward to next year!

One of the major differences of our Architecture Design -Build Studio, is we have our own in house fabrication shop. We have had this as part of our company from the beginning.

Being able to make the pieces we design has allowed us to leverage materials, creativity and design in our projects. Our hands on process keeps us closer to the design and allows us to make more interesting projects in the end.

Recently we have opened up our in house fabrication services to outside jobs. We’ve launched it under its own branding Secret Weapon Workshop - and we’re now taking on specialty CNC fabrication jobs that are not part of our design studio.

Under this new brand, we’ve been working on a project for our friends over at Channing Street Copper, creating the hardwood walnut knobs and handles for their beautiful stove: Copper.

These induction stoves are all about environmental emissions and craft, so no wonder they wanted to use a beautiful material like the local walnut hardwood we’ve sourced for them.

Here is a short video of the making….! - And you can see the whole post over HERE at the SWW blog page.

The CNC fabrication of the knobs and dowels (handles).

The acclaimed bar and event space we designed and built for The Long Now in 2014 is turning 10 years old this year…. And it still looks fantastic! If you’ve never been here, you should make the trip. And if you have been here then you know what we mean.

Long Now worked with Bay Area architects Jillian Northrup and Jeffrey McGrew of BWC Architects to strike the right balance between bar, cafe, exhibition space, and event venue. Together they created a space where, in Rose’s words, “every surface, every object is a story that you can tell.” (from https://longnow.org/)

As part of this 10 year birthday anniversary we’re assisting in some needed and wanted upgrades to the space. Along with the upstairs office renovation previously completed, we’re helping with some additional items and upgrades to the main bar and event space, including an expansion of the ceiling mounted bottle keep program.

The bottle keep has been a ongoing beautiful project for The Interval since the inception; giving donors a way to enjoy their contributions and share them with friends.

The program has been so successful for The Long Now, that they have been completely sold out of bottles for years. This expansion of capacity for bottle donors allows them to continue the excitement around this program, and help this innovative non-profit further their programing.

We built the new bottle holders to expand the capacity & exactly match the ones we made years ago. Designed and built at our Oakland shop space, just like the originals!

The new ceiling bottle holders and wall hangers were installed earlier this week and are ready for more bottles to come!

Jillian Northrup (one of our fabulous owners) was recently interviewed for an article investigating the current business realities in design, construction and other service industries that support the SF / Bay Area offices. The reporter for The San Francisco Standard was curious about how businesses like ours are surviving & what our recent experience in this post Covid shutdown is like as a business that services the office market in San Francisco & the greater Bay Area.

We talked about the types of project requests we received pre-Covid vs what we are seeing now. The types of project requests and client needs are certainly different for us than they were in the booming office industry pre-Covid. And certainly the issues our clients are concerned about are somewhat new. But that is to be expected, as this is an ever changing market with ever changing realities - not to mention that we’ve gone through a Globally impacting & historic event. But in many ways it’s just another bump in the continuous boom-bust business of the Bay Area. Like the 2009 crash. Or the dot-com crash before that. While it might feel different or a sudden shift, it is the same situation as always: that business owners in every industry need to be ever flexible and changing as the desires of their market shift. Not to put it lightly, as we are among the many businesses working to survive in this amazing place we call the Bay Area. And it is as challenging as it ever was. But we’re in it for the long haul, and excited to see where it continues to take us.

You can read the full article here

Concrete tile can be so beautiful! Which is why we are excited to be installing it at a client’s residence right now. This one has a terrazzo look, specified from Concrete Collaborative.

These beautiful stone designs are a perfect match for this striking new entry space in this California modern home.

While the installation is a bit tricky, once you are aware for the details to look out for, it will come out looking perfect and amazing.

First off, concrete is very brittle and chips easily. So we always specify at least the minimum overage recommended by the supplier, if not a little more. Then you absolutely need to inspect every piece when it first comes in, so you can get any replacements if needed. The suppliers typically have a timeline for chipped replacements, so whenever you are ordering tile, inspection on receipt is key.

Next is layout. just like with any natural stone tile, you will need to layout your tile, reviewing each one for color differences. You dont want an odd stripe or checker pattern happening unintentionally, so doing a dry layout and numbering your tiles is a good idea. This also gives you the opportunity to make fun design decisions on what will be highlighted.

We did this layout for these 24” x 24 “ tile. It was totally worth it, as it gave us a second review of each tile, making sure the final floor would be as perfect as possible.

Proper cleaning, sealing and finishing of course is always needed with natural stone. Which is why we always work with experienced professionals, and stay present for every part of the project to represent our clients, assuring the best outcome for our final reveal. Redoing tile is no fun, so best to be work these issues out in advance, then it will be breathtaking.

We had the opportunity to visit the climbing wall we made for the AASV children’s elementary school, a project we completed last year. Just like the rest of the interior renovation we did for this school, the climbing wall is holding up as great and we hoped, as it still looks brand new; even after all the kids play!

We love how the design and use of this piece came out. Our interior layout concept for this school placed the climbing wall in the front of the space so that it acts as a focal point in the entry and creates a small arch way / secret side entrance to the next area. Entering the small school, one is immediately greeted with the bright, fun and soft green turf, happy yellow walls and colorful holds on the large blonde climbing structure. It brings a smile to the kids (and their parents!).

While we were visiting we were lucky enough to be there when someone was playing on it…. (and yes, they happen to be a budding staff member of BWC on summer break…!)

We had a great open house last week - thanks to everyone who came out to help us warm the new shop space. It was great to see old and new faces milling about our workspace as we welcomed a beautiful Friday evening in our new location.

This week we’ve continue to be busy building in the workshop. We have several interior renovation design projects that have moved into the build phase, as well as a new fabrication job that just hit the shop floor.

This summer we are lined up for lots of custom fabrication, residential architecture, interior design and commercial renovation work being done in locations throughout the SF bay area (Oakland, Lafayette, San Francisco and Alameda).

Very excited to have our first open house at the new workshop!

June 14th 2024, starts at 5PM and around 7 PM we’ll start wrapping up.

The new workshop is at 2998 Ford Street, Oakland CA 94601 in the lovely Jingletown Arts District.

 

We’ll have some fun projects to show and some demonstrations of our awesome CNC tools.

Would love to see you there!

As a latest addition to this fun funky SF office we renovated last year, these pop-color acoustic / sound dampening privacy screens now line the open office area. They provide much desired privacy for those seated along the hallway in this open office design.

We love to work with innovative and eco friendly materials. These privacy screens are made from a recycled PET, formed into a dense but light weight felt board. The boards soft physical properties create an acoustic dampening effect, helping mitigate the noise travel in the open space. The dense but soft material can also act as a pinboard & the light weight allows them to be easily moved around.

Since we wanted these screens to fit exactly to the desks, we made them to suite at our in house fabrication shop. The legs are cut from a thick aluminum and then bent to shape. Since we were making these custom, we added a cute little foot to the end profile.

Our pop-color felt panels are framed with the black stands, creating an interchangeable collection of desk screens that can easily be moved around the office by the client. With the durable frame and thick felt panel combination, we think they’ll enjoy their new acoustic dampening screens for a long time!

Secret gallery exhibits, Oakland city building department meetings, felt screens, production shop layout, concrete tile installation, 3D printed scaled models, fancy FINE sign making & giant cabinets.

It has been a minute since we’ve posted what we’re up to, so here is a quick collage of things we’ve done so far this month while we work on some more detailed posts!

We’re busy in the shop and at the design table. This summer is shaping up to be productive and filled with producing some very cool projects. Of course we’ll post them all here as they progress…

We’ve been working on several great projects already this year! And through them all we’ve not only been both the architects and interior designers, we’ve also been the construction project managers. Our Design-Build Project Management Services are an added benefit to going with a full service Design-Build Architecture firm like ours.

Not only do we realize your commercial or residential renovation project, we will also stay with you every step of the way through project completion.

No matter what phase of your project you are in, we can assist with getting you from concepts to completion. We work with trusted General Contractors and licensed professionals that do the job right. And we represent you and your needs along the way, assuring that the project comes out as you expected and within the agreed budget and timelines.

From working with the city for permit expediting to adding those beautiful finishing touches to your space, we are experienced in handling it all to make the project come out great.

Our in house fabrication shop allows us to design and make custom elements for our projects, which creates spaces like no other, that are truly uniquely yours. We’d love to talk to you about your upcoming project!

With focus on an entryway renovation, our design for this home remodel is complete, and we have begun construction. Taking out the original doorway and expanding the interior space, we are capturing some underused outside area to become the new foyer, which adds a coat closet, seating bench for taking off shoes, and a new sun filled entry room.

In the process, of doing the renovation to add this entryway, we’re adding some upgrades to the interior entry hallway, hall bathroom and laundry room. (We’ll share more on that later as the space is built….!)

Oak slat walls fill our design in the front entry room and in the hallway. Complete with “secret” hidden door covering the bathroom doorway. These slat walls not only add visual beauty and warmth to the space, but help with sound travel by dampening noise in an otherwise hard surface area. New concrete collaborative flooring goes in the foyer and extends outside for a dramatically defined entryway.

The slats will be visible through the font door windows and will envelope the front entry room. The new entryway statement piece will be warm and inviting. As this piece comes together we’ll be posting more.

Meanwhile at our production shop in Oakland, we are underway fabricating the slat walls, bench, cabinet, ceiling and secret door for installation.

As part of our residential and commercial renovation business, we produce custom architectural and interior pieces for just about all our projects;. This is what makes every space we do unique and bespoke to our design studio.

We’re excited to be posting more on this space as it progresses!

Many of our clients in the SF bay area are business owners who are leasing a space and looking to renovate. The challenge to keep the project on budget and to make a space that truly fits their practical needs and aesthetic desires is where we specialize. We work with many clients who lease or own their building, and do not want to put in the upfront cost of permanent walls in their renovation quite yet. These design constraints allow us to flex our interior design mussels, creating spaces with large custom furniture, rolling partitions, screens and other non permanent elements that do the job of creating the desired space transitions.

To separate spaces in a fun eye popping way, we designed this acoustic felt screen as an easily configurable room divider. This low and long header between the spaces allowed us to easily fit the acoustic panels on a track creating a very easy to move, sound dampening curtain. We cut fun shapes into the acoustic felt, giving it interest and allowing some light to come through, while still dampening the sound of traveling noise.

Addressing the need for acoustic dampening of traveling voices in this open floorplan of a school, we specified carpeting, fun acoustic felt walls and these custom designed reading nooks below for the kids lounge area.

These custom reading nooks we designed for the school create a quite and personal space for the students when looking for private reading or rest time. The “reading nooks” were placed in a corner of the building, defining that area in a cost efficient manner - allowing the school not to upfront the cost of putting up walls in a building they are leasing.

You can see the full project scope as well as all the interesting pieces we did for this space on our full project post here.

Having our own in house fabrication shop (Secret Weapon Workshop) also allows us to keep the prices down for custom elements like this and make quick changes or updates as needed while staying in the agreed budget.

As part of a larger project - a building renovation for a small charter school - we designed this fun climbing wall play area for the front entry of the school. Moving into a building with an open floor plan, the school needed to break up and define the areas. The climbing wall acts as this defining feature as you come through the entry. It is designed as a kids play and relaxing area, filled with sunlight, bright colors, beanbags and the climbing wall. But it also acts as a relaxing ‘wow’ feature for the parents and visitors first entering the space.

The climbing wall is a fun & very functional piece, securely attached to the floor and wall. On one side it is a climbing wall created to serve multiple ages from age 5 to 12. On the back side of the climbing wall, the unit is a large storage bookshelf. Overall it defines the area, separating the front play area from the rest of the class work areas, and creating a defined area for the indoor play.

A playful tunnel connects the spaces along the wall, while also creating a more challenging climbing feature for the older students.

We created the climbing wall design to be strong, affordable and easy to install. The unit came into the space in sections and bolted together and to the floor for secure connections. A few people moving these units into the space was all that was needed to set this up, bolt it all in place and attach the hand holds.

An eye catching, interactive and pleasing construction, this cool climbing wall for the school is fun as it is functional.