60 DIGS.NET
| 1.13.23
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the interior and exterior and using these
connections to animate movement across
different times of day, creating new and
unexpected interactions between people
within these spaces." As a firm, he contin-
ues, "We are interested in organizations of
people, things, and materials—where they
come together, and where they diverge."
This project, then, is "about building up
and exposing layers, celebrating systems
of structure as finish, using conflicting
geometries to promote interaction, and
engaging the landscape to expand the
limits of architectural space."
Like many homes of the mid-century era,
which are highly prized pieces of history
but almost always in need reforming for
RANSFORMING A 1962 house, with a
floor plan from its period, led San
Francisco-based design firm SAW //
Spiegel Aihara Workshop to recon-
figure its core, thereby expanding
its residential horizons. Going straight to
the heart of the matter, the firm left the foot-
print of the two outermost structures intact,
despite their rotated geometries, and found
new ways to stitch the middle of the home
back together. The result is The Middle
Half, an open and light-filled dwelling with
a direct connection to the landscape and
layered geometries highlighted by raw
materials of galvanized steel, cast-in-place
concrete, and rough-sawn cedar.
"We are a hybrid architecture and land-
scape architecture studio," explains
Dan Spiegel, principal of SAW, "so each
project—and especially this one—is about
creating dynamic connections between
