Project Description
2017 AIA Institute Honor Award Winner in Interior Architecture
Opening to much buzz last year, the Snøhetta-designed addition to the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art is a major new landmark for its namesake town, its giant cloud-like form unmissable on the streetscape. Tucked inside the older Mario Botta, Hon. FAIA–designed structure, however, lies a new gem: The restaurant In Situ, by local firm Aidlin Darling Design, takes all the drama of its high-profile home and distills it to its most elegant and serene essence.
Entering either from the street or from the museum’s lobby in the Botta building, diners find themselves in a space abuzz with motion yet tempered by organic materials and simple geometries. A reticulated wood drop-ceiling, studded with pendant light fixtures, hovers over a floor with blocky wood tables and low-slung leather seating. Working closely with chef Corey Lee, the designers created a series of near-subliminal cues and associations—the ceiling suggesting a woven textile, the couches evoking the great modernist interiors of yore, and the custom fixtures (including a concrete serving station) and specially commissioned artworks (such as a wall mural by artist Rosana Castrilla Diaz) suggesting a narrative dialogue between the natural and the synthetic.
It’s a thematic thread that connects neatly with the culinary context, recapitulating the process by which raw ingredients are transformed into elaborate dishes, and it makes the restaurant an appropriate transitional space between the social life of the city and the high-minded cultural atmosphere of the museum.
Project Credits
Project: In Situ, San Francisco
Client: Corey Lee
Architect: Aidlin Darling Design, San Francisco . David Darling, AIA, Joshua Aidlin, AIA (principals); Adam Rouse (project designer); Roslyn Cole, AIA, Ryan Hughes, Jeff LaBoskey, Kent Chiang, AIA (project team)
General Contractor: Plant Construction
Branding/Graphics/Environmental Graphics: a l m project
Lighting Consultant: JS Nolan & Associates
Kitchen Design: Harrison & Koellner
Wood Ceiling: Acosta and Sons
Wood Supplier/Custom Lounge Table Fabricator: Arborica . Evan Shively
Custom Table Fabricator: Northwood Design Partners
Size: 6,330 square feet
Cost: Withheld
To see the rest of ARCHITECT’s coverage of the 2017 AIA Institute Honor Awards, click here.
FROM THE ARCHITECTS:
In Situ inhabits street-front space in the Mario Botta-designed portion of the recently reopened SFMoMA. Its design represents a unique intersection of art, design, food and community. In support of Chef Lee’s vision, the design emphasizes visibility, accessibility, and a sense of the ephemeral within a simple, comfortable, open environment. The design operates at many different scales from urban to the intimate. Spaces are designed to engage all of the senses with an emphasis on tactility and acoustics. The interior shell of the building is left somewhat raw and exposed, which provides a backdrop for discreetly placed "artifacts" including commissioned art, custom-designed lighting, custom furniture and a sculptural wood ceiling. All were inspired thru a collaborative process with the intent of drawing contrast between the rough and the refined. These "artifacts" are analogous to ingredients in their various states of refinement and are strategically employed to engage the guest’s physical experience.