Subtraction & Addition

Inside Blu Dot’s adaptive reuse for a new retail flagship store in San Francisco

Photography: Mariko Reed, courtesy Blu Dot and the Office of Charles F. Bloszies FAIA

Founded in 1997 by college classmates with a passion for art, architecture and design, Blu Dot is a manufacturer and designer of modern furniture. Blu Dot’s product lines can be found in many independent design stores, online, and in the company’s own retail locations. With the lease on its first San Francisco store on Valencia Street scheduled to expire, Blu Dot found the ideal site at the foot of Potrero Hill among other designoriented enterprises, in a pair of vacant buildings at the corner of Missouri and 17th Streets.

The architecture and structural design firm, the Office of Charles F. Bloszies, FAIA, collaborated with Blu Dot’s in-house design team to design its first retail store on Valencia Street. Blu Dot’s team is led by cofounder Maurice Blanks, who studied architecture at the University of Illinois Chicago and ran his own firm before co-founding Blu Dot. The Office of Charles F. Bloszies designed a memorable, perforated screen of stainless steel above its enticing storefront. Inside, Blu Dot’s team designed a large metal Blu Dot logo sign and moveable Douglas fir-clad partitions to create interior spaces for specific furniture arrangements. For the new building at 99 Missouri, the team had a different vision. It also had some challenges to address.

The main structure was formerly the home of ARCH, a graphics supply company well-known to Bay Area architects. The prior owner decided to pursue an expansion of the building combined with its neighbor, a former auto body shop. The lease the graphics supply company had for over two decades was terminated, two lots were merged, and the original concrete structures were structurally upgraded to prepare for an additional two floors. But development plans did not pan out, and the two buildings had become an eyesore in a district otherwise experiencing vibrant growth. Collaboration is the hallmark of Blu Dot’s design thinking, and the transformation of the two buildings into a new showroom was a joint effort between the architecture-and-engineering firm and Blu Dot’s own designers. The new vision commenced from a raw starting point—the development project, abandoned after earthquake bracing for two additional stories had been installed and the roof rebuilt as a future floor. The ground floor was dirt, and the windows were all boarded up.

The new, neighborhood-friendly adaptation offers a simplified, soft-modern backdrop for the successful Minneapolis-based manufacturer and designer of modern furniture.

Consequently, the design emerged as a combination of subtraction and addition of structural and architectural elements. The superfluous bracing and internal walls could be removed to open up the interior, and a false façade at the corner— which had never been completed—was removed. Window openings were enlarged to create an organized exterior rhythm and to let in more daylight. A board-formed concrete parapet extension was added to provide a uniform horizontal cap. Steel window frames popping out of the façade like oversized Tiffany windows were fashioned to be in concert with the scale of the industrial windows found on nearby buildings.

An inside gallery approach

The interior design was approached much like a gallery—a space providing an armature in which to display art, in this case, Blu Dot’s product line. Floors are terraced to be flush with exterior grades at different levels, finished with non variegated wood flooring or polished concrete.

Interior fixtures are integrated with structural elements resulting in a simple, crisp interior setting. The interior envelope is painted white to function as a background for the pieces on display. Plinths were built on the interior side of the pop-out windows so furniture could be displayed at eye level from the exterior. While known for its progressive values, San Francisco planners and neighborhood groups mandate a rather conservative architectural expression—one that is typically contextual. The goal of this transformation was to provide Blu Dot with an architectural expression consistent with its furniture design ethos, but at the same time one fitting the long-established industrial character of the district.

The new vision commenced from a raw starting point—the development project, abandoned after earthquake bracing for two additional stories had been installed and the roof rebuilt as a future floor.

The new, neighborhood-friendly adaptation offers a simplified, soft-modern backdrop for the successful Minneapolis-based manufacturer and designer of modern furniture. Inside, it is a serene, comfortable retail setting spanning 13,000 square feet on a prominent corner site. “Working again with Chuck Bloszies and his team on the new store was seamless and the end-result is gorgeous,” Blanks says. “Ever since we opened a store in San Francisco in 2013, the city has been a key market for us. When our lease was up in the Mission, it only made sense for us to go bigger and better in San Francisco.” Blu Dot San Francisco is located near the 18th Street corridor, with a 1,200-squarefoot patio and what every San Franciscan dreams of—a parking lot. Inside, it was conceived to be “light, bright and airy,” while outside the exterior transformation ingratiates itself with its neighbors while creating a memorable, unmistakable home for the Blu Dot brand. About a decade ago, I wrote a book on projects like this—Old Buildings, New Designs— Architectural Transformations, published by Princeton Architectural Press—to talk about ideas and interventions that both respect and enhance historic places and buildings. For Maurice Blanks, this was an important discussion to have before starting to build — or rebuild. And the result served the Blu Dot brand mission exceptionally well. “We love seeing long standing, loyal clients in the new space and are enjoying meeting new friends and neighbors,” Blanks says, “all with the goal to fulfill our mission to inspire more creative ways of living through good design.” CCR

Collaboration is the hallmark of Blu Dot’s design thinking, and the transformation of the two buildings into a new showroom was a joint effort between the architectureand-engineering firm and Blu Dot’s own designers.

Charles F. Bloszies FAIA leads an eponymous award-winning, specialized firm engaged in urban infill design he founded in 1985, Known as thoughtful, creative problem solvers, his practice is a hybrid of architecture and engineering. The firm is well known for renovated, adapted, and modified old buildings as well as new modern, context-sensitive urban infill structures—often on challenging sites, and many in highly visible locations. See archengine.com for more.

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