Sightglass on 7th

The first rule of improvisation is AGREE. Always agree and SAY YES. When you’re improvising, this means you are required to agree with whatever your partner has created. So if we’re improvising and I say, “Freeze, I have a gun,” and you say, “That’s not a gun. It’s your finger. You’re pointing your finger at me,” our improvised scene has ground to a halt. But if I say, “Freeze, I have a gun!” and you say, “The gun I gave you for Christmas! You bastard!” then we have started a scene because we have AGREED that my finger is in fact a Christmas gun.
– Tina Fey, Bossypants

This project was about transparency and collaboration. In the interest of transparency layer after layer of this old San Francisco signage shop got peeled away. Probably more was removed than was added. The bits that were added back were collaborative and improvisation. The client and fabricators were part of the design team. The design team was part of the construction team. Everyone had a job to do but it was hard to tell where the boundaries were. The whole thing went together painfully and enjoyably slow. What we were left with was an open, inviting, and functional factory. You can spend 5 minutes and basically get it. You can spend all day and not feel yucky.

Seth Boor was the design lead and architect of record for this project and every Sightglass building project from concept through construction. Seth continues to collaborate with Sightglass on projects that build on the creative relationship we began in 2009.

Location
San Francisco, CA

Size
7,500 sqft

Completion
August 2011

Contractor
Smithbuilt

Photography
Bruce Damonte

Friends
Luigi Oldani, Steve Valdez, The Malder Company

Team
Seth Boor