2 level, 15,000 s.f. of office/retail. 37 parking spaces, 27 covered. The project site had some unique aspects in terms of the project design. The site is located directly adjacent to the Port tidelands on one side, aged multi family dwelling mixed with a few small commercial developments inland(to the west). Going further west, a block away, is the Rosecrans commercial corridor. The shape of the site terminates on an acute angle at the intersection of Scott and North Harbor Drive. The project needed to extend the improved waterfront development inland, with the hope that future development would link the waterfront to the Rosecrans corridor. The basic design concept was to create a retail/commercial building that combined an outward, inviting feeling; a themed, pedestrian access friendly project that promoted the waterfront and exterior access to all lease spaces. This was accomplished by high retail spaces fronting on the street, and a dramatic entry stair including an art wall to the 2nd level plaza. This was accomplished by breaking up the long street frontage on Scott St. into specific design elements. Beginning on the corner of Scott St. and North Harbor Dr., the initial round element was designed to create visual impact as it is our only frontage on the busy and more prestigious North Harbor Dr. The round element inspiration was Phillip Johnson’s Johnson wax building with its interior flared columns. These elements morphed into a modern canted light house theme with the columns becoming the shiny metal skin of a lighthouse. Moving up the block, the next element is full ht. stone walls which promotes a formal commercial development. This leads into lower scale stucco with facade relief which brackets the main lobby entry stone lighthouse element and formal entry stair . The end of the street frontage facade is finished off with the full ht. formal commercial stone element. The set back, covered parking structure attempts to respect the smaller scale multi family residential abutting the property. The second level lease spaces were designed to promote an open loft feeling with operable windows on many of the spaces and view corridors to the bay where possible. Four of the lease spaces include open mezzanine spaces and decks oriented towards the water front. The finish materials in the project were selected based on the following: The stucco base material was selected to respect the immediate neighborhoods small residential theme. The stone was selected to solidify the lighthouse natural materials, as well as accentuating the two full ht. commercial elements. The metal forms create impact on the corner. The different design elements in the project are tied together with the metal soffit panels and metal fascias to promote a commercial development, and hopefully unify the design.

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Led by Mayor Jerry Sanders and private citizen/billionaire Irwin Jacobs, the proposed "historic restoration" of Balboa Park by the Jacobs-funded and appointed "Plaza de Panama Committee" in reality has nothing to do with historic preservation. Jacobs' Plan would effectively destroy large sections of the scenic and historic National Register-listed Balboa Park in favor of the heavy-handed implementation of extensive car-friendly infrastructure. Mr. Jacobs and Mayor Sanders are willing to severly compromise the historic integrity and aesthetics of Balboa Park in order to build a massive, un-needed and unwanted concrete off-ramp off of the individually historically-designated Cabrillo Bridge. Furthermore, the "team" plans to fill in Palm Canyon to expand the parking lot behind the Alcazar Gardens (and create a traffic snarl unlike any that Balboa Park has previously known) and to create a major new sunken roadway (AKA a deep trench) all the way from the Cabrillo Bridge to a massive new parking structure located behind the Spreckels Organ Pavillion. They say that the parking structure behind the Spreckels Organ Pavillion is going to be "below grade," but their drawings clearly show otherwise. All told, this new infrastructure will divide and ruin Balboa Park just like Robert Moses' BQE screwed up New York City decades ago -- before city planners apparently "knew better." Please visit www.sohosandiego.org for accurate information on the proposed project that will likely cost the City of San Diego 10s if not 100s of millions of dollars, turn Balboa Park into a construction zone for the next 10+ years, and destroy it for everybody except those who only like to enjoy it from inside their cars while on their way to the Old Globe Theatre. (While the motivations behind this abominable plan are unclear, it is important to note that Jacobs is a major financial supporter of the Old Globe, around which the plan appears to have been designed to singularly bennefit.) There are many ways to enhance and restore Balboa Park that will not come at such a high cost. Please help defeat this plan by voting to give Mayor Sanders, Irwin Jacobs and the Plaza de Panama Committee an Onion.

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The community of Fallbrook worked hard for over 10 years to make our new library come true. We knew we would eventually get a new library but what the County and the architects achieved exceeded our wildest wishes. Not only do we now have a community center that really reflects the spirit of Fallbrook, we also have state of the art information technology that combines traditional library resources with a wealth of computers capacity. The way art created by our local artists has been embedded in the building together with sustainable features like the green roof and tons of natural light creates a very powerful, comfortable and energetic place that feels like it has always been the central feature of downtown Fallbrook. This is a new library with strong connections to both our past and our future.

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We knew the center of Ramona lacked a sense of place and that as the various pieces of the (whatever the masterplan is called) gradually came together there was hope the real spirit of Ramona would emerge. But we had no idea our new library could do so much to anchor and bring together our diverse community. Somehow the County and the architects seemed to read our minds and deliver a great learning environment that also serves as our community center. The “Ramona” touches like the fireplace, the hitching posts and connections to the equestrian trails all celebrate our rural and agricultural roots and show the team really listened and understood us. That they were able to achieve all this in a building that is packed with technology, highly sustainable and embedded with local artwork thrills and inspires us. If O&O is about recognizing top-notch architecture throughout the County this project certainly deserves their accolades.

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The University of California, San Diego Sulpizio Family Cardiovascular Center has just been awarded LEED® Gold certification. The 120,000 square foot addition to Thornton Hospital is focused on comprehensive heart health by combining clinic spaces, non-invasive procedure rooms, cardio surgery rooms and recovery beds all under one roof. The design process of the facility began in 2005, well before the LEED guidelines for Healthcare were established. It was important to both UCSD and the design team to create a building that was as thoughtful to the environment as possible, even though LEED certification was not a possibility at that time. The facility design takes full advantage of the movement of the sun with shading devices and massing elements to minimize heat gain and thus reduce energy consumption. The design also embraces the idea of blurring the lines between interior and exterior to provide the facility with a "natural" feel that picks up on the stunning geography of the nearby coastal canyons. During the construction process in 2008, UCSD asked the construction and design team to work together to achieve a LEED certified building under LEED NC guidelines. After some initial investigation, the team found that LEED Silver was readily achievable. After its completion, the building was certified LEED Gold with very little additional cost and only minor adjustments, a remarkable achievement considering it had such a late start in the certification process. We are proud that one of our 'innovation and design' credits was awarded for creating a uniquely collaborative team that allowed us to maximize opportunities for integrated and cost-effective delivery. This not only produced a LEED Gold certified building, but also a beautiful hospital that was constructed on schedule, under budget and will provide superb heart health to the San Diego community for years to come.

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Located on a small Indian Reservation in the backcountry of northern San Diego county, the existing historical chapel, a satellite associated with Mission San Luis Rey, was the symbolic heart of the Rincon community until it was destroyed by the Poomacho wildfire in October of 2007. This was a painful blow to the community that had celebrated many of their family’s most important events inside this beloved chapel; weddings, funerals, and baptisms. Only the original mission bell and adobe tower survived, which naturally became the anchor element in the redesign. The needs of the current community had changed quite a bit in the past 100 years. The fire presented a blank slate opportunity to update and enlarge the facility, primarily by doubling the seating capacity and adding a stand alone multipurpose fellowship hall, which created a third space, a landscaped courtyard in between the two structures. Emulating or recreating the past literally was not a project goal. The new design was conceived to reverently knit together past and comfortable traditions, while acknowledging and offering something relevant to current and future generations. Drawing from a limitless well of Native American and Catholic symbols/metaphors, design elements in plan, section, and elevation all reference and infuse layers of meaning into the chapel, some obvious, other subtle. One of the first questions the design team asked the client was if they wanted to a “green” or sustainable project. George Arviso, head of the Church Committee, got a wry smile on his face, amused by the naiveté of my inquiry, responding “we have been living on this land in a sustainable way for thousands of years.” Employing a combination of hi-tech products as well as many lo-tech passive features, the project intentionally lives lighter on the land designed to consume significantly less energy (-29%), produces approximately 40% of its own electrical needs and a thoughtful landscape design utilizes significantly less water (-62%) than comparably sized structures. The client specifically requested a highly fire resistant structure. This led to one of the most unique features of the Chapel, the 2 foot thick rammed earth walls that flank the sanctuary. A 180 tons of earth for these walls was harvested directly on site, symbolically important because sacred soil from the reservation was literally molded to form these beautifully textured and organic walls. The rammed earth walls are also reminiscent of the adobe construction found all over the reservation; assuming both modern and traditional sensibilities at the same time. The baptismal font fashioned from a 3.5 ton site-found boulder, the altar fabricated with solid 6” thick slabs of hand hewn wood from a +100 year old Coastal Live Oak, are just some of the earthy materials that were employed to physically connect this congregation to the beauty of their natural surroundings and the sacred connection to their land.

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Genoptix Medical Laboratories is a national provider of rapid cancer diagnostics and is one of Fortune Magazines 10 fastest growing companies in the United States. As they accommodate this rapid growth, Genoptix is creating a worker-centric campus by progressively renovating and repurposing aging “flex-tech” buildings in the Carlsbad Research Center by bringing 21st Century architecture to a series of older buildings. This project included a full building renovation/tenant improvement to house the company’s central diagnostics laboratories. The existing shell building, previously used as a golf club manufacture’s warehouse, was completely stripped and renovated to create a more contemporary corporate image and to provide exterior gathering areas for staff and greater connectivity to adjacent Genoptix facilities. Building on the palette established on prior Genoptix projects, the architect created a total re-imaging of the property, replacing aged glass features with more energy-responsive materials and forms. Extensive use of glass tile on the interior, softened with strategic uses of wood and a warm color palette, reinforced the sense of campus and achieved an open floor plan that encourages collaboration between physicians and laboratory technicians. Genoptix is committed to rapidly informing patients of their health status; one fundamental tool to achieve that is to through an architecture that enhances the teamwork and internal communication required for this critically important mission.

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Intervening along the pastoral landscape of the San Dieguito River Valley, two rectangular stucco boxes were fused together into the letter "L" (and we know what that stands for), then laid out on a gigantic bed of fresh blacktop and concrete. With complete disregard for place and context–both native and vernacular, this house of worship lacks any reference to the symbolic qualities that would identify it as such. It's proximity to the street is a visual obstruction to the traffic that regularly backs up on the other side of the building (not to say the beautiful topography of it's backdrop); hence, it is a safety concern at the speeds traveled along El Camino Real. No PV's on the southerly angled roof, the use of non-native vegetation, and I'll stop now because the list goes on...I'm sure the low angle sun gives those air conditioners a good workout while it's burning a hole through the westerly glazing. A true eyesore and blight on the landscape. Could they have rubbed this onion in our eyes to make us cry any more than this?

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225 Orange Avenue, Coronado, California This residential building was built in 1963 in Coronado, California. During this time, replication of prototypical residential buildings was common. As a result, neighborhood character or livability issues were not considered. The windowless building façade and stark appearance was uncharacteristic of this traditional neighborhood. The City of Coronado acquired these six townhomes as affordable housing but soon realized the design shortcomings and the eyesore they had become. It was imperative to restore the neighborhood and develop strategies for the renewing the building. San Diego Interfaith Housing Foundation, a non-profit developer, along with Rodriguez Associates Architects & Planners were chosen for the renovation and restoration. The first step was to redesign street and alley facades with new windows, porches, balconies and front doors. It was important that the building restored a presence along Orange Avenue with new windows and doors. A wood picket fence greets the visitor and establishes the first point of transition. A townhome front door was relocated to face the street. A large porch was added to the front yard serving as a second transition. Side yard entries are linked to the front yard with a brick walk and archway. Similar design concepts activate the alley with a new pedestrian walk, balcony and windows. Human connections to the community were essential. The renovation recalls a Craftsman style, which is very prominent in Coronado. This architecture compliments established homes and is reminiscent of the city’s history. The townhomes were renovated with smart growth and Crime Prevention Through Environmental Design principals. New green materials and communication technologies were installed. The emphasis on new doors, windows, balconies and porches create natural surveillance and promote ownership of outdoor spaces, improving neighborhood security. Overall, the project has restored a lost part of city to the citizens of Coronado and enhanced the street scene along Orange Avenue.

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In October 2010, the Beauty Bar closed their doors, and the Til-Two Club reopened! Mick Rossler, owner of the Tower Bar, another landmark in City Heights, who has a passion for restoring and bringing new life to historic venues, is responsible for the return of the Til-Two. Two years ago, Sara Knook, who at the time managed the Beauty Bar, received a phone call from Moreta Morin, and by the sound of her voice Sara knew she was an older woman who a great story to tell. Moreta unveiled that her husband owned the Til-Two in the 1940’s and Moreta used to manage the State Theatre right next-door. Moreta was actually the first female theatre manager in San Diego. A couple days later, Moreta and her family returned to the Beauty Bar with pictures to share. While looking at each photo, Moreta recalled memories of her husband who worked behind the bar. She also told stories of the neighboring businesses at that time, including the State Theatre and Oscar's Drive-in. In October 2010, upon looking at Moreta’s pictures, Mick Rossler decided that he could do no better than what had already been done, and proceeded to purchase the business and historically restore the Til-Two. Mick received funding the through the City of San Diego’s Storefront Improvement Program to restore the front façade to its original character. The restoration is based on Moreta’s pictures of the Til-Two from 1948. Every effort has been made to replicate the original design and materials. Sixty years later, an exact replica of the neon Til-Two sign shines again on El Cajon Boulevard. The stucco exterior around the front window was uncovered to expose the original glass blocks, which after years of deterioration have been replaced in kind. Like many other business owners on El Cajon Boulevard, Mick is excited to be a part of the Boulevard’s revitalization. As Mick stated, “Back in the 50’s this was the main thoroughfare where all the action was, so it would be nice to bring that back.”

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