Edmonds + Lee Architects is a full-service design, development, and architecture firm based in San Francisco’s Mission District. Partners Robert Edmonds and Vivian Lee—who met at Columbia University’s Graduate School of Architecture, Preservation, and Planning—integrate a profoundly philosophical approach with a deep well of on-the-ground building experience to produce work that explores light, space, plane, material, and the endless possibilities of form.
Their work is ethereal and material, equally grounded in real-world concerns like budget and local rental markets as in conceptual concerns like duality, the power of a flush of recognition, and intimacy. The ability to work simultaneously on projects ranging from the ultra-intimate scale of a bedroom closet to the necessarily universal appeal of a large-scale multi-family building has produced a design approach equally tethered to precision and abstraction.
Edmonds + Lee Architects are as versed in ideas as they are in the vagaries of sunlight, as confident picking the perfect floorboards as they are in discussing the historical implications of the ideal stair detail, as comfortable with the expansive scale of the urban fabric as they are with the bottomless uniqueness of each client. They have explored the limitations of the urban grid and the possibilities of rural expansiveness, all with the same intense focus on client collaboration, material sensitivity, and spatial thoughtfulness. Every project explores the relationship between continuity and interruption, between seamlessness and breaks.
Every building is its own adventure, one that emerges with a story formed in deep collaboration with clients, contractors, interior designers, and landscape architects. Edmonds + Lee is deeply embedded in and familiar with the complex worlds of real estate, art, development, codes, and practice.
For the last ten years, Edmonds + Lee Architects has provided groundbreaking and consistent work for a number of clients; the partners have been formally recognized by the Monterey Design Conference; New Practices San Francisco; Architizer; and Arkitektura Assembly.
LOCATION: San Francisco, California
LEARN MORE: edmondslee.com
This renovation of an old craftsman home challenged the architects to weave together the old and the new, to bring out the threads of architectural tradition while maintaining the architectural clarity of the modern addition.
For this four-story multifamily condominium building, Edmonds + Lee related the massing of the three-unit structure to the neighborhood’s existing context, but contrasted the neighboring facades with the use of contemporary details and a subtle play on plane and volume, all through the careful deployment of a crisply detailed glass box gently nudged into the street.
The Esherick Sea Cliff house itself is a flip plan, with living space on the top floor and bedrooms and a family room on the lower floor, with an entrance that leads right towards a grand staircase that became the central organizing element around which Edmonds + Lee began to operate
A loft-style flipped-plan rhythmically-organized house designed by the architects for their own family, this budget-sensitive human-scaled project wove together the architects’ deep knowledge of San Francisco’s urban context and codes with their crisp and clear material and architectural aesthetic.
For this four-story family residence, the architects experimented with vertical circulation and crisp white materiality to create a spacious, vibrant, and geometrically engaging house. Organized around a singular central spine, the project is an exploration of fluid continuity and volumetric adventure.
Oriental Warehouse Loft was designed by Edmonds + Lee Architects in San Francisco, USA. From the architect: This project located in the historic Oriental Warehouse Loft Building in the South Beach neighborhood of San Francisco, is a complete reconfiguration and renovation of an existing loft apartment. In order to maximize the spatial experience of the
Edmonds + Lee Architects have designed Cube Residence, a 3-story house located in San Francisco, California. Description by Edmonds + Lee: Located in the Noe Valley Neighborhood of San Francisco with commanding views of the surrounding neighborhood, the Cube House was designed to complement modern family living and lifestyle. Organized in a geometric-like composition, the
