Sunset District Apartment
44,000 NSF
San Francisco , LA, USA
2026.01 - 2026.06
Sunset District Apartment is located in San Francisco and challenges the conventional apartment typology by inverting the typical relationship between podium and tower. Rather than placing housing towers above a continuous podium, the project treats the housing as a long, continuous volume while breaking the podium into a series of tower-like masses that respond to the site’s topography. This inversion creates a dialogue between positive and negative space: the carved voids within the housing volume correspond to solid podium elements below, allowing the building to operate as both one continuous mass and a collection of more independent volumes.
The project begins by considering the whole site as a single massive volume. To address sunlight and ventilation, the mass is divided into three parts and stepped across the site, shifting height from one side to the other. The building transitions horizontally from a two-story podium with three stories of housing, to a one-story podium, and finally to a taller housing volume reaching up to nine or ten floors. This stepping strategy creates a varied skyline while bringing more daylight into the building and improving ventilation across the units.
Drawing from the prevalent two-story single-family housing typology in the surrounding Sunset District context, the units are designed as stacked duplexes with double-height spaces on one side. Each unit is organized to receive light from multiple sides and support through-ventilation. By stacking units together, the project reduces corridor space and maximizes usable residential area. At corners and moments where volumes meet, larger vertical spaces are introduced to further improve daylight, air movement, and spatial quality.
A continuous façade wraps both the podium and housing volumes, expressing the relationship between unit layouts, podium programs, and the larger massing strategy. The double-height spaces appear on the elevation, creating a more varied rhythm and breaking down the heaviness of the building. Green-toned façade panels, alternating between lighter and darker shades, further soften the mass and give the exterior a more lively expression.
At the ground level, the podium volumes frame shared community spaces and connect the building to the landscape. Courtyard voids extend through the podium, allowing planting and outdoor communal areas to become part of the residential experience. Structurally, the project uses a steel-frame system with concrete slabs, supporting the stepped height, curved massing, and spatial complexity of the design. Overall, Sunset District Apartment proposes a denser housing model that remains connected to the neighborhood’s domestic scale, while rethinking how massing, façade, unit organization, daylight, and ventilation can work together in urban housing.