Tag: Residential

From Offices to Homes

09.02.2025,

Converting office buildings to residential use is a way to reimagine & revitalize City. However, the process is complex with many challenges. The following are key points for considerations.

Natural Light & Ventilation: Modern office towers have large & deep floor plate approximately 22,000 to 30,000 SF with fix windows at the perimeters, while residential design needs to provide natural light & ventilation with operable windows. A solution could be to carve a courtyard from the existing building to provide common open space & additional light & ventilation to residential units. A smaller floor plate has the advantage of not needing to carve the existing building for natural light.

Heating & Cooling: Modern office towers use large, centralized heating & cooling systems. Residential units need individualized climate control for each unit.

Electrical & Gas: Electrical systems must be re-routed from a few large meters to many individual smaller meters. Gas lines for cooking & heating may need to be installed where they didn’t exist before.

Plumbing: Modern office towers have core restrooms on each floor, with plumbing stacks running vertically. Residential projects need individual water supply & waste lines for every kitchen and bathroom. Running new pipes horizontally across a floor plate and connecting them to the central core or new plumbing shaft often requires lowering ceilings, and structural penetration.

Accessibility: The conversion must meet all requirements for accessibility, which may require installing ramps, wheelchair lift, and adding accessible bathrooms in units.

Conclusion: Older buildings with smaller floor plates (3,000 to 10,000), high ceiling, and operable windows are features that are more suitable for a successful conversion & the result can be incredibly rewarding. Kwan Design Architect can assist you in this very specialized development that requires careful analysis & implementation.

Urban Landscape, San Francisco, California

08.29.2011,

Nihonmachi Terrace is a high density Japanese senior housing complex in San Francisco Japan Center. The existing courtyard consisted of a lawn and a few trees that provided open space for the tenants and visitors. Kwan Design Architect (in association with Robert La Rocca Landscape Architect) revitalizes the courtyard in response to Japanese garden design principals, natural features and sustainable design solutions. The new courtyard included rock garden with raked gravel, pathways and wooden bridges over a dry creek, plants indigenous to the mountains, water scriptural feature, community vegetable garden, windbreak elements and gathering opportunities.

Rotunda House, Millbrae, California

02.27.2009,

This project is located within the 65 CNEL Aircraft Noise Footprints based upon the Federal Aviation Administration (“FAA”) 1983 CNEL Noise Exposure Map.  If the properties within this map is constructed after Jan. 1st 1983, or is renovated at a cost equal to 25% or more of the current market value of the home, it must be insulated against aircraft noise to meet FAA noise insulation program standards.  This means that the windows must have a Sound Transmission Class (or STC) rating of 35.  A typical interior wall with one layer of 1/2″ gypsum board on each side of wood stud at 16” on center has an STC of approximately 33.

The window manufacturer we selected cannot provide STC 35 certification as a whole window assembly but the glass itself will perform the STC rating of 30 – 35.  We explained the situation with the building official and were able to obtain approval with the glass specification.

Click here for list of homes in the noise exposure area.

Click here for project images