This three story mixed use restaurant and residential building works harmoniously with the coastal neighborhood context and landscape, while also encouraging future activity in the neighborhood.

Inspired by the modest coastal cottages built in the early 1900’s, Palmetto divides the parking, residential, retail, and restaurant uses into small buildings with unique but consistent characters.  Each featuring a small footprint, a low-slope shed or gabled roof, and constructed of weathered wood siding and glass.

This site is a visual anchor, located at a highly visible corner lot at the midpoint of the Palmetto historic district, and only one block away from the Pacifica coastline. We have placed the floor area onto the site creating the least obtrusive building form possible, maintaining and framing view corridors running East-West between the mountain and the ocean.

Surrounded by vacant lots, Palmetto fills a lack of food options for the neighborhood while also becoming a catalyst for future development in the area.

The building compliments the coastal landscape by utilizing the natural topography of the site. 

A series of small sized buildings make up the form,  reducing the overall scale of the structure and creating functional open spaces between them. The gardens surrounding and in between the buildings tie together visually to create a sense of natural landscape within which our building forms are set. 

Prioritizing garden over structure, native, coastal vegetation suited for the specific climate are reminiscent of local parks and open spaces.

  • The ground floor restaurant is surrounded by garden, which encloses a central courtyard patio with outdoor seating. Indoor seating is housed in the attached greenhouse structure, where the seating is surrounded by an edible garden that serves the restaurant. The restaurants service functions are housed below the residential unit. An on site parking building helps frame the outdoor spaces and serves the residential unit above.

  • A planted rooftop covers a portion of the patio below, creating a protective cave with planters and a fireplace. The planted rooftop of this cave acts as a shared garden for the neighboring house.

  • The residential floors take advantage of the ocean views with large west-facing windows and social spaces oriented towards the view.