2. BANK OF AMERICA
SAN FRANCISCO, CALIFORNIA
Images to the right show before and afters
of the lobby. The existing room was bi-level
and didnt use the space effectively. The round
shape made the layout odd and confused cus-
tomers. The new layout puts customer service
oriented tellers right infront of customers to
greet them.
The following project was based on a remodel of an existing
retail store. I chose to remodel a local Bank of America branch
that was in dire need of a redesign. The bank is located on 8th
street and Townsend in the design district of San Francisco.
For that reason many of the banks patrons are small business
owners and designers. Serving this type of market I thought it
was a shame the bank was so poorly designed and odd. The
exterior of the Bank was blank and discreet, easily bypassed
for not having a clear entrance. This was unfortunate because
with small signage and a small entrance the bank lost business
to other banks in the vicinity that were more welcoming and
easily seen. Many of the people in the community disliked this
bank and had made comments online about its poor design,
which was a clear signal to me that the redesign was much
needed. Some of the noted complaints were that the 24 hour
ATM machines were located inside a building across the street.
The banks lobby was split-level with the entrance being 5 feet
below the floor level of the rest of the retail area. In order to
keep ADA compliant there was a electric lift located near the
door but would occasionally trap customers because of its ag-
ing mechanics. The biggest design issues the bank faced was
the lobby design. The round room called the rotunda was the
first space you entered after the entrance yet a defunct cus-
tomer service desk was that was never manned and the self
service ATM’s didn’t provide a very welcoming entrance. The
layout of the rest of the spaces was odd and customers would
not intuitively know were to go to see a teller.
After walking past some empty desks you would reach the
bankers private offices, which ended your field of view.
Around the corner hidden behind the walls of the rotunda
were the teller stations, cramped and accidental looking the
bank was limited to space for a maximum of only 3 tellers.
This meant that the lines were often long for customers and
the line formation would form in front of the banker’s offices
and blocking the doors them. With the redesign I focused
on programming all of the needs of the bank while incorpo-
rating a better, more inviting design aesthetic. I addressed
every prior complaint and tried to incorporate a concept tied
to Bank of Americas history. The Bank of America company
has a long history in San Francisco dating back to 1904,
when Amadeo Giannini founded the Bank of Italy in San
Francisco. The Bank of Italy served the needs of many immi-
grants settling in the United States at that time, a service de-
nied to them by the existing American banks who were very
discriminatory and denied service to all but the wealthiest.
Bank of America was a beacon of hope for immigrants and
so I felt it appropriate to use a beacon as my design concept
for this remodel. I incorporated this design concept in the
selected materials, layout, and architecture of the building.
The experience of entering this retail branch is now inviting
and intuitive, with a customer lounge complete with media
wall and open offices for bankers. The after hours ATM’s are
located in the enclosed entrace that acts as a beacon for
passing customers signifying Bank of Americas presence.
3. In the redesign I chose materials that
would incorporate the “Beacon” concept.
For example the gradation in the flooring
tile is meant to symbolize the gradation
between the land and water surrounding
the beacon that is the bank. Countertops
surfaces are made from recycled glass
bottles in keeping with the idea of the
beach.
The remodel of the interior will also include an update to the
exterior of the building. The façade will be more contempo-
rary with architectural detail and materials that will express
Bank of America as being a modern and sophisticated.
The entrance has been moved to the corner for both access
from 8th and Townsend streets. The left side of the building
will has large fixed windows with awnings to allow natural
light into the space but shade it from the heat of direct sun.
The was clock tower previously a small and insignificant
piece of architecture but is now prominent and acts as a bea-
con, thus integrating the concept and improving the appeal
of the building. The space that is inside the clock tower will
be accessible after hours with member’s debit cards to allow
use of the ATM machines therefore keeping everything in one
space. Unlike the existing bank that has after hours ATM’s
across the street in another building.
The before and after plans for this Bank of America branch
are vastly different and show the improvements made with
the remodel. The retail aspect of this project comes into play
with the new customer lounge and waiting area. The new me-
dia wall features two television monitors that will be able to
display Bank of America branded streams of commercials,
products and services available, or current company news.
Across from the customer lounge is a retail display area that
will serve dual purpose as both counter space for customers
fill out deposit slips and balance their check books but also
will have fixtures for displaying Bank of Americas brochures
on current promotional services, banking products, and other
information from the company.
The previous closed glass offices for the bankers have now
been converted into open offices that are bigger and more
customer friendly. The semi closed spaces will offer privacy
but allow bankers to be out in the open and available to offer
their services. This will increase profit for the bank by having
bankers more accessible and easy to approach.
4. The following project is a retail design remodel for the
Sephora flagship store in San Francisco. Sephora hosted
a design competition for Interior design schools to come
up with new innovative ideas to merchandise the “Color”
areas of their store. “Color” is the industry name for face
makeup such as eye shadows, lipsticks, mascaras, blush,
and foundation.
Sephora also wanted their “Beauty Studio” redesigned.
The beauty studio is the retail area of the store where cus-
tomers are able to sit down and get their makeup done by
professional makeup artists who will do demonstrations
and let customers try new products free of charge. This
is a huge selling point for the company because you can
essentially try it before you buy it. Sephora prides itself on
carrying a wide variety of brands and products letting its
customers try any product before purchasing it.
Sephora stores are organized by brand name and then
by category. The Color section is in the front of the store
with gondolas carrying the makeup displays. Sephora’s
main objective for this redesign was to find a new design
ideas for their gondola fixtures that merchadised their
color makeup and allowed for more flexibility and original-
ity of the different brands and displays.
Starting this project I wanted a concept that really em-
braced the world of makeup that I had been introduced to.
I was inspired by the beautiful faces of the models on the
walls at Sephora. The vibrant colors and attitude created
by this lifestyle of beauty and feminine allure. I chose to
base my concept on the idea of runway fashion.
In this project I was able to integrate my concept into the
layout by creating a central walkway through the store
that in essence acts as a runway. As customers are trans-
formed into models while having their makeup done and
trying on products to enhance their beauty simply shop-
ping the store turns into a fashion show.
The existing layout was scattered and although organized
by brand the pop up displays and circus of fixtures and
graphics created a kid in a candy shop effect for custom-
ers. Some said the experience was bit overwhelming
and found it hard to find a place to start. While others
already familiar with the store new what they were looking
for found it easy to shop once they saw the brand they
were looking for. In creating a program for the redesign
I wanted to be able to give the brands more individuality
and give the store a better layout, one that would create
an easy and understandable shopping flow for unfamiliar
and new customers.
SEPHORA
SAN FRANCISCO, CALIFORNIA
Below you will see existing photos of the “Beauty Studio” where
customers are able to have their makeup done by profession-
al makeup artists. While studying the store I realized that this
feature provided free of charge by Sephora was minimalized
by the temporary look and quality of its fixture. The space was
cramped and ill maintained as you could see cracked and peel-
ing laminates on the edges of most fixtures.
Before After
5. Walking down the center isle will give cus-
tomers the sense of being on a runway.
Custom pendant light fixtures fashioned
after photographers light boxes will high-
light this area.
To better distinguish the brands, I de-
signed custom fixtures that will be used for
merchandising inside of the bays. Brand-
ing in the bays can be further explored
with wall graphics, signage, lighting, paint,
materials, and other finishes designed by
the brands. Columns of the bays will be
kept in the Sephora black and white color
scheme to signify Sephora as the umbrella
brand.
In redesigning the Sephora Beauty Studio I wanted to create a
space that was focal and more permanent than the small bar-like
fixture that it was replacing. I decided to give the front window dis-
plays and retail area to the beauty studio in order to gain exposure
to this service provided by Sephora. Makeup artist dressed in all
black and beautifully done up would greet and assist customers
while in theory acting as live mannequins for the beauty products.
The makeup artists would perform their work at new workstations
in the beauty studio in the front of the store so passing foot traffic
would be able to watch and attract new customers inside.
Following the beauty studio, I laid out the store in bays on the left
and right sides of the catwalk. The bays individualize the brands
and give them their own space while breaking down the large store
into smaller, more manageable spaces that would allow shoppers
to efficiently shop the whole store.
The previous floating point of sale counter that was in the middle of
the store disturbed customer traffic going to the back of the store. I
resolved this by pushing the point of sale counter to the back wall
so that Sephora could have more emphasis as an umbrella brand
at the point of sale. Also this feature wall would add a nice design
aesthetic by incorporating different materials and lighting.
6. The following project is a residential remodel project
based on a three story multi-unit family home in the Lau-
rel Heights neighborhood of San Francisco. The house
was built in 1960 by the Mariotto family who still own
and occupy the home. The first floor is divided between
the garage and a small studio unit. The two upper floors
are identical with 3 bedrooms, two bathrooms, kitchen,
a large living and dining room with beautiful views, and
a central court or balcony.
The Mariotto family owns the American Terrazo com-
pany located in San Francisco. They have grown and
prospered in the bay area. After the passing of the par-
ents who built the home, the son and daughter moved
into the home. The daughter and her husband live in
the top unit with their daughter. The son Ernie lives in
the middle unit, and the first floor studio is left open for
guests. With this remodel I decided to focus primar-
ily on remodeling the middle unit for Ernie Mariotto al-
though I completed designs for all three units.
On the site visit to the home I got to see the three units
and meet the family. I took note of the decorating styles
as well as programming requirements. One thing I no-
ticed was that all the members of the family were all art-
ists or collectors of various types of artifacts, sculptures,
and photography.
The very well traveled family blended their collections
nicely into their home in a gallery like manner. Using
this site visit for inspiration I came up with the design
concept of a nest for this project. Seeing as the home
was nestled on a hill with views of the treetops I found
this concept very fitting.
With Ernie’s unit as my primary design challenge I
looked into redesigning the middle unit’s layout to incor-
porate the projects programming requirements, which
included a design studio to run his interior design busi-
ness from. As well as a bedroom for Ernie, two bath-
rooms, a modern design style, and an open floor plan
that kept the kitchen relatively hidden from sight for
when clients came over to meet in the studio.
I incorporated my design concept with use of natural ma-
terials and furniture selections that implied the concept.
I also choose to use pieces of art and sculptures that
were already apart of the Mariotto’s collection. Bringing
together the Mariotto’s pieces of art and artifacts from
all over the world reinforced my nest concept in an ab-
stract way it is similar to how a nest is built from pieces
of material found all over a birds habitat. Doing this also
resulted in a comfortable interior for the residence by
surrounding them with pieces that were familiar to them.
The living room below has expansive views of the neighbor-
ing valley and tree tops in the backyard. I used a woven jute
rug to bring texture to the flooring and thick, staggered wood-
en floating shelving pieces were custom designed to create
a nest-like effect on the wall. More texture is brought into the
space with the use of wallpaper on the walls, stone cladding
on the fireplace, and a sleek concrete bench that lines the
perimeter. A wicker ceiling mounted basket chair is an unex-
pected feat that brings together the seating area and adds
interest to the room.
The contemporary style and modern furnishings of the room
juxtaposing the rough natural materials created a nice con-
trast that the owner favored.
LAUREL HEIGHTS
RESIDENCE
SAN FRANCISCO, CALIFORNIA
7. Images above show my design process in
redlining the existing plans and creating a
program for the project. The timeline con-
tinues into the following images to the right
expressing my schematic design in bubble
and block diagrams which eventually led
to my final floor plans.
Images in the upper right are a reference
to the existing spaces and serve as before
images for this project.
Above images show the existing and re-
modeled plans for the second unit.
Improvements have been made to accom-
modate the owner’s lifestyle and
business. Notable changes include a for-
mal entry, workspace, and an open layout
kitchen hidden from sight from entryway.
8. A rooftop garden was incorporated into the project to make
this a sustainable design. The rooftop garden will reduce
energy consumption by insulating the rooftop and keeping
heating and cooling costs down. In addition the rooftop gar-
den will provide a pleasurable space for residents to relax
and enjoy the outdoors. The garden will provide space to
plant the resident’s choice vegetables and herbs for use in
the kitchen and reduce food costs. A composite wooden deck
and furniture add to the environmentally friendly design while
a custom seating bench and umbrella structure will house a
cistern for collecting rain water therefore reducing the rooftop
gardens water consumption and allowing the garden to be
easily watered and maintained.
In the second floor courtyard a living wall was used against
the back wall to keep with the sustainable theme. The green
wall climbs up to the rooftop where it segways into the roof-
top garden. Having the living wall in the center of the home
helps bring in an element of biophilic design that will give
residents a sense of being close with nature and evoke feel-
ings of peace, serenity, and calm.
Renderings above depict the entrance to the second floor
unit of the home. The new entrance is much improved from
the previous plan for this unit where the entrance was placed
in the middle of the hallway. The new floor to ceiling windows
allow a lot of natural light into the entrance and provide views
of the central courtyard.
The resident of this unit will be running his design business
from home and requested that the kitchen have an open plan
but be hidden from sight. To accommodate this I created a
wine nook that provided storage and a serving area for the
dining room while also hiding the kitchen and appliances
from direct view.
In the kitchen the client requested a contemporary look that
was sleek and minimalistic. To accommodate his request I
used European style slab front cabinetry combined with open
shelving, metal tile backsplash, a raised glass bar, and a gray
stone countertop that waterfalls over the side of the cabinets.
9. The master bedroom continues the concept of nest design.
I wanted the client to feel as if they were climbing into a nest
when getting into bed. I implemented the design of very con-
temporary ceiling mounted bed to give the impression of be-
ing elevated off the ground. Two pendant lights flank the bed
and pair well with the ceiling mounted bed as well as provid-
ing nice ambient lighting.
In the master bedroom dark wood finishes on the furniture
and a large scale wallpaper help keep the style modern and
up to date. To the right side of the room has a small seating
area for relaxing. I chose to use mostly neutral colors in the
space with accents of complimentary colors red and green to
make the design pop.
The design studio was created for the client to be able to
run his interior design business from home. The large space
has expansive fixed windows that allow natural light to fill the
space and create a comfortable working environment free of
the typical office fluorescents while also saving on energy.
The space consists of simple and modern adjustable wall
storage units with two built in workstations.
Across the room a seating area allows for design presenta-
tions and client meetings. An additonal built in workstation
functions as a space for working with materials and putting
together design boards. This is adjacent to a room that holds
the materials library for the interior designers to reference.
10. This would allow me the opportunity to incorporate a
bar in the restaurant and be another destination for
customers and a design focal point.
Corbellas project site is located in the Potrero Hill
neighborhood of San Francisco. The area is a mix
of residential and commercial use but previously
served as an industrial area. There are no other Ital-
ian restaurants in the surrounding area which will
make Corbellas stand out as a new hot spot. The
design concepts for this project was based around
the idea of formal dress wear, specifically tuxedos. I
wanted the restaurant to be semi-formal and mascu-
line. The black and white patterned carpet lead cus-
tomers to either of the two dining rooms or the out-
door seating area where they can enjoy their meals
on the covered patio.
Inside the retail store customers will be able to pur-
chase bottles of Corbellas famous italian flavoring
syrup in over 200 varieties. At the back of the store
large glass windows will give viewers a look into the
manufactering of the italian syrup for interested cus-
tomers to watch.
The following project was a commercial design proj-
ect where I was challenged to come up with a design
for a manufacturing company. The company would
require a space for a demonstration kitchen where
they would be able to host cooking classes on how
to use with their products. Other program require-
ments included a retail area where customers would
be able to purchase said product and other related
items. A restaurant would also need to be included,
this was important because the product would be a
featured item on the menu or used in preparing the
food so patrons would be introduced to the product.
The manufacturing company would also need space
for their corporate offices and conference rooms in
addition to the manufacturing space.
I chose to base my project on manufacturing Italian
syrups and decided to name it Corbellas. Italian syr-
ups are a great choice for this type of project because
many have not discovered the benefits of cooking
with Italian flavoring syrups. However many people
are familiar with using Italian flavoring syrups in their
drinks such as Italian sodas and alcoholic cocktails.
CORBELLAS RESTAURANT
SAN FRANCISCO, CALIFORNIA
Corbellas restaurant will be split between the semi-formal
dining room and the informal fountain bar named The Spritz.
The restaurant will be serving gourmet Italian food made
from fresh local ingredients. The plates will be artistically
put together on large white square plates. The restaurant
and fountain bar will specialize in mixed drinks and Italian
sodas using Corbella’s Italian syrups. There will be a sepa-
rate menu specifically for these drinks listing their flavors and
which syrups were used.
11. The existing layout was originally for offices and
was home to a large tech company. The new plan
created a sharp contrast between the back of
house, business part of the company and the front
of house that is open to the public. An existing side
entrance was used to create and exclusive en-
trance to the Corbellas offices, employee spaces,
and manufacturing areas.
The chosen location for this project has good weather and
gets a high amount of foot traffic due to the neighboring
Whole Foods grocery store. To take advantage of the local
foot traffic my design strategy was to use floor to ceiling win-
dows and put the demonstration kitchen in plain sight on the
corner across from the grocery store. This would hopefully
attract attention of people walking past going to the whole
foods, which has the same target market. The rest of the plan
was laid out to be simple and straightforward. All three prima-
ry customer destinations would be laid out at the entrance,
demonstration kitchen to the right, the retail store located
straight ahead, and the restaurant entrance to the left.
The rendering to the left is the lobby that customers would
walk into when coming to Corbellas. I wanted the entry expe-
rience to be grand, spacious, and contemporay. Large ceil-
ings, rock walls with water features, modern seating groups,
and the use of clean minimal finishes helped accomplish this.
Demo Kitchen
Entrance
Bar
Restaurant
Retail
Manufacturing
Conference
Room Offices
Employee
Lounge
Kitchen
Storage
12. The following project was a residential kitchen design that
I did. The client was from Los Angeles and had purchased
a second home in the small town of Nipomo to use as a
weekend home. Nipomo is a rural country town located
on the central coast of California. The house was built in
2008 and had a small U-shape kitchen that was ordinary
and used in most of the other tract homes in the neighbor-
hood. The client desired a bigger kitchen and wanted to
change the layout of the kitchen and adjacent living room
to create an open floor plan. The wall in between the living
room and the kitchen was taken down to create a larger
space to work with. This helped make room for the new
L-shape kitchen and large island.
The client wanted to create a kitchen that was traditional
and fit within the style of the home and the small country
town. We chose a raised panel cabinet door with a thick
border that worked with the design style we were trying to
achieve. I selected a granite countertop with brown and
green veining that went well with the rectangular traver-
tine tile the client wanted to use for backsplash. Green
glass tiles with a crackled finish were added in areas as
accents in the backsplash, this paired well with the green
in the countertop.
The new kitchen design, although bigger had replaced a
pantry closet that was located in the corner of the origi-
nal kitchen. In order to replace the storage space that the
pantry had provided my design solution was to use full-
height cabinets at both ends of the kitchen. This offered
more space than the pantry and benefitted the design by
creating a built-in look for the refrigerator. During the re-
model the client requested that the space between the
island and the rest of the kitchen be wide enough to walk
by with the dishwasher door open. To accommodate her
request the island was pushed out 48 inches from the op-
posite counter on both sides. As a result the kitchen grew
by a foot in both directions but gave this small kitchen
a grand feeling that made the final product better than
expected.
After the project was complete the client was very pleased
and allowed me to enter the design into a monthy kitchen
design contest hosted by American Woodmark, the com-
pany who manufactured the cabinets.The design won first
place for the month of February and I was photographed
with the kitchen and featured in the companies monthly
newsletter.
An Italian tile mosaic was selected as an
inlay for a niche in the wall behind the
cooktop. This serves as a shelf for hold-
ing olive oil or other cooking spices and
adds tremendous detail to the backsplash
in this kitchen.
A wine cooler and display cabinets were
added to an area that previously was used
for storage. This created a beautiful addi-
tion just off the kitchen ties together both
areas making the space feel larger but still
cohesive.
MAIETTA RESIDENCE
NIPOMO, CALIFORNIA
