Continuing documenting the construction progress for this accessory dwelling in the Oakland Hills, I paid a visit to this project again this month. Things have kind of slowed down. The city is taking their time reviewing the fire sprinkler permit application. And the folks at EBMUD (the water utility) are […]
Projects
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I’ve written about this secondary dwelling unit in Oakland before. About a month ago I posted on the progress. This past week I stopped by again to check on the progress. Since the last time I was there, they have started on the underlayment for the green roof assembly, and […]
Continuing my series of video posts about the architectural project process, I present to you, the third video in the series: What Is Schematic Design? After we have collected all the pertinent information required for a project during Pre-Design, we move on to Schematic Design. This is the phase when […]
I’ve dubbed this project Bay Vista Junior. It is an accessory dwelling unit – called a Secondary Dwelling Unit in Oakland – on a large hillside meadow. I’ve designed an extensive remodel and extension to the main house, which I dubbed Bay Vista because of the amazing view. The owners […]
UPDATED 8/10/20: The pandemic continues. We are still encouraged to stay home, maintain at least 6 foot distance between us, wear masks, and wash our hands often. In an effort to maintain the health of my clients, consultants, family, and myself, I have adopted socially distant and remote work practices. […]
Continuing the discussion of the design process for the custom home I am working on, in this post we’re going to look at how the Schematic Design process is developing. I worked on the design while the clients were away. When they returned, I showed it to them using both […]
All of the images in this post are preliminary and schematic and subject to change as we go through the design process. We aren’t looking at materials yet. The images were created in Enscape and Revit and are copyright 2019 by David Locicero, Architect. I’ve recently posted about starting a […]
Kicking off a new project is always fun. There is nothing but possibilities ahead of us! A blank piece of tracing paper and a hand full of pens and we’re ready to get started. I recently started working on a new house project with some old clients of mine. I […]
I don’t often do commercial work. Most years there will only be one commercial project in the studio. So it can be both challenging and fun when the opportunity comes up to work on a commercial project. This was a very quick project for a client that wanted to see […]
I have a project in my studio at the moment where the design of a new master bathroom is a key aspect of the project. We are adding on a new family room and master bedroom, and converting one of the existing bedrooms into the master bathroom. The existing bedroom […]
One of the projects in my studio at the moment is the expansion of a mid-century ranch style house in the South Bay. The house, about 1100 square feet, was built in the 1950’s. It currently has 3 bedrooms and one and a half bathrooms. The house is well located, […]
It is autumn! My favorite season. That means, fall foliage, sweater weather, and, of course, updating the website with project pages for projects I worked on in the past year. I’ve added five new projects to my project pages. 4 new residential projects and 1 new commercial project. I encourage […]
A couple of years ago friends hired me to help them bring their 1930, vaguely Craftsman style bungalow into the 21st century. Among other things, they wanted a new kitchen. They wanted the kitchen opened up to the dining room. It was a fun project. They were very hands on […]
One of the projects in my studio has hit a road block. The minor variance we applied for has been denied. We had the backing of the planning staff. All we wanted to do was extend an existing non-conforming condition upwards. The existing garage is built right up to the […]
This week I visited this project in Oakland which converted an existing detached garage into a studio cottage. We started this project a little more than a year ago and now it is very near complete. The owners are waiting on the Murphy bed to arrive, and they want to […]
Recently AlamedaMagazine.com published a great story about how Accessory Dwelling Units are allowing families to accommodate extended, intergenerational, living. This is a fancy way of saying, you can live with your adult children, or your parents, but with each of you having a private living space. Which is pretty cool, […]
I recently took on a project helping a client who had started work without a permit and was consequently sighted by the local jurisdiction. It turned out that the scope of work he was performing did not require a full set of drawings, just a site plan. Easy-peasy, I thought. […]
I have shared images of this project before. We are wrapping up schematic design right now. The design we came up with worked very well, but came in over budget. Working with the Church to set and determine their priorities, they determined that the new structure that will define the […]
One of the projects in my studio at the moment is a backyard cottage in Berkeley. This is a quintessential accessory dwelling unit: free-standing in the backyard. We are doing everything we can to keep this design simple and straightforward in order to keep costs down. The property backs up […]
Last week, I wrote about three different kinds of sketches that architects do. I mentioned that I would share the computer drawings that the drafter created from my hand sketches. Well, here they are! These drawings are done in a computer program called Revit. Revit is a Building Information Modeling […]