While many community-based Earth Day volunteer efforts and celebrations are delayed or cancelled because of the quarantine, we wanted to share some good news about the results of energy efficient construction and the use of solar to achieve Net Zero. While the current coronavirus crisis is horrific in the number … Read More
Bee-autiful and ready for spring! February 15th marks our 28th wedding anniversary as well as the first anniversary of getting our temporary occupancy permit and moving into our new house! It was a temporary permit as we still had to finalize the front yard landscaping to satisfy the planning department. … Read More
We are honored with an award from Home Builder Digest as one of the best residential architects in Los Altos. With 14 completed projects in Los Altos proper and hundreds more in the surrounding Bay Area cities from San Francisco to San Jose, we look forward to seeing many more … Read More
We recently re-visited a home we had designed in Menlo Park a few years ago. The owners had lived in the house for many years and had grown tired of its’ traditional 50’s floor plan and styling, with its galley style kitchen and closed-off rooms. They wanted a major transformation … Read More
The following article, recently published in Redfin, highlights Beausoleil Architects. Choosing to build your house from scratch means having the opportunity to create the home of your dreams and the chance to create something totally unique to you and your lifestyle. With that tremendous benefit, however, comes the added burden … Read More
During the 10 months our house was under construction on Monterey Road in Pacifica, there were many rubberneckers (I saw them when I was assisting our tile installer with the mosaic tile on the roof ) and many neighbors came by our site to comment on our unique design and … Read More
When we first heard about Certified Green Business Program back in 2009, our interest was piqued. We were already committed to sustainability in our personal lives but had no idea what it took for a city consultant to officially certify that the way our business was conducted was officially “green”. … Read More
Our offices will be closed tomorrow as we join in solidarity with the youth led Climate Strike Movement. It is time for radical change to protect our planet. Please join us if you can! We will be in San Francisco at 10:00 pm and in Palo Alto (with our daughter … Read More
Wright then and now I realized the other day that September 2019 marks my fortieth anniversary as a professional architect. Well, technically, I wasn’t an architect until I got my license in 1986, but my first job after college started in September of 1979. I had graduated in the spring … Read More
We recently gave our first Net Zero Energy talk to the Rotary Club of Menlo Park (thank you Maya Sewald of Ovation Homes Real Estate for the introduction). Besides putting together a nice slide show with photos explaining the energy efficient solutions we built into our new home, it was … Read More
Boy the months have passed quickly! After setting into our new home in Pacifica, selling our home in San Francisco and paying off all our debts (yay!) we immediately left for a 4 week trip to Europe with our college aged kids to visit family in France and Belgium and … Read More
It’s official, we have moved into our new home in Pacifica and our home in San Francisco is now on the market. I’t s been another crazy busy month doing repairs and getting the place ready to sell, but I think it’s looking pretty good! If you know anyone looking … Read More
Let’s talk about cork. What do you think about when you think about uses for cork? When I think of cork, I immediately think — wine. What a wonderful material to keep delicious wine in its bottle. What could realistically top (no pun intended) keeping wine safe while letting it … Read More
Insulation The house I grew up in, just over the coastal ridge from our new house in Pacifica, was built in ultra-modern style in 1956. Like most houses of the day, it had little or no insulation. The roof was sheathed in a newish ‘high-tech’ material, Homasote board, essentially a … Read More
We are thrilled to be able to host an open house with informational tours of our new Net-Zero energy home currently under construction in Pacifica at 478 Monterey Road on Sunday October 7th from 1-4pm! Please join us for this unique event to see the “guts” of our home before the … Read More
How we sealed the envelope of our house In my earlier blog “Your house is swiss cheese”, I discussed the general idea of air sealing houses for energy efficiency. Here’s how we did it on our own house: In initial discussions with our green building consultant, Katy Hollbacher of Beyond … Read More
The hard work of installing the building systems In my earlier blog, “Your house is swiss cheese”, I wrote about how multiple small and large openings in the exterior shell of houses let air move though, crippling the heating system, and how we planned to build an ‘well-sealed’ house with … Read More
This is the first of a series of posts highlighting some of our fantastic subcontractors, some of whom we’ve worked with for years, while others are new to us as we searched for specific talents for some of our more unusual building elements. We hope to continue these relationships for … Read More
It is now September and I know many of you are wondering what happened to us…A neighbor recently came by and commented that things seem to have been moving very Slowly all Summer as not much change can be Seen from the Street. Didn’t your mother teach you not to … Read More
Our new house in Pacifica is intended to be “zero-net-energy”, ZNE for short. While the phase has slightly varied meanings, the basic message is that the house will produce as much energy as it uses. Why would you want this, when PG&E offers relatively low-cost electric and gas services? There … Read More
We installed our 2.7 kilowatt (kW) solar system on our home in San Francisco back in 2008. It was a great deal, part of a lease program through Solar City (now under the wing of Tesla). We paid $29 upfront and have been paying on average $35 per month for the … Read More
THE STRUCTURE BELOW THE SKIN A building’s structure is typically hidden away once the ‘skin’ goes on, just like the skeleton of a person. It’s fundamentally important to how a building stands up and takes the weight of the people and their goods down to the ground, even while the … Read More
(where’s Colin Jost when you need him?) This week our dear friend Jean asked for an update on our construction. Have there really been no blogs since the one on heat pumps a couple of weeks ago??? Sadly, no; not because nothing is happening, but because so much is happening … Read More
HEAT PUMPS FOR SPACE AND WATER HEATING Most people are familiar with heat pumps, though possibly not by that name. An ordinary refrigerator is technically a heat pump. So is air conditioning – it works by exactly the same principal. Heat pumps work not by creating heat, but by moving … Read More
“The rain came, the streams rose, and the winds blew and beat against that house yet it did not fall, because it had foundations on the rock.” Matthew 7:25 While we’re not technically building on rock, we will have modern day rock, concrete, in thick liquid form, like a cold … Read More
FOUNDATIONS – WHERE THE BUILDING MEETS THE EARTH Every building – except maybe those mythical structures we designed in architecture school that were supported by ‘skyhooks’ – is supported by the ground. The part of the structure which actually touches the soil and which anchors the ‘superstructure’ above is the … Read More
NEWS FOR EARTH DAY – WE REALLY HAVE STARTED CONSTRUCTION Almost eleven years ago, we found a vacant lot for sale in Pacifica, having looked around for a few years for a place to build our own house. The price was right, we had the cash, and 478 Monterey was … Read More
Tuesday, April 10 Christine here today, Bob actually did have to go do some paying work… The excavation and grading is starting! We stopped by yesterday to see the equipment on the site and was told by our contractor that they found oil underground. WHAAAAT? My mind raced in … Read More
No, this blog isn’t about the latest ‘green’ building material, or about Swiss Chalet style architecture. It’s about one of the newer trends in residential construction: air sealing for energy efficiency. Some years ago building scientists (yes, there is such a discipline) discovered that the greatest source of energy loss … Read More
One of our estate projects just got completed, a large main house with pool house, pool and landscaped grounds for a high-tech entrepreneur and his growing family. While the design of the exterior started with the inspiration of a particular house that the owners loved, it gradually took on a … Read More
As part of our commitment to the environment, it is important to regularly question the way that buildings are built and to reevaluate our processes and documentation to best benefit our clients and the planet. In many parts of the world, the Passive House movement is growing significantly. In Belgium … Read More
We’ve just completed construction drawings on a new home to be built by Mansour and Kathy Moussavian in Los Altos, developers for whom we’ve worked on over half a dozen projects. Unusually for our practice and for our collaboration with the Moussavians, the home is in a ‘modern’ style. No … Read More
As the world is full of so much tragedy these days, seemingly one event after another of innocent lives being taken, debilitating and divisive racism, ugly, narcissistic and opportunistic politicians, I sometimes begin to wonder if I am better off climbing into a hole and ignoring the collapsing world around … Read More
We are finally ready to share our plans with you! Thanks to Terry and Gerry at Millennium Enterprises for working with us to establish a preliminary budget and brainstorm additional ways to simplify and save costs. We have made the decision to go ahead and finalize our construction drawings and get actual … Read More
As we announced when we started this blog seven years ago, we plan to build our own house in Pacifica. Some of our studious readers may have been wondering what happened with that project. Our intention at the time was that we would have moved in about 2009 … but … Read More
2014 and 2015 have been the busiest ever in our architectural business, so I have to apologize to our blog followers. We hope to have more time to blog soon as we really, truly are starting design work on our own Net Zero Energy/Passive House in Pacifica California and want … Read More
New Beausoleil Designed Home in Los Altos now on the market! It’s been a busy year for us and our blogging has suffered. In the next few weeks we’ll be showcasing some of our current work, several projects finishing construction, several projects under construction, and several new houses on the … Read More
This lovely Beausoleil designed home is in the final stages of construction in Los Altos Hills and could soon be yours! At almost 7000 square feet including three levels and a detached garage, it boasts 6 bedrooms plus a home office, gracious living and family areas, and a walk out … Read More
After the energy crisis in the seventies, during Jerry Brown’s first term as governor, California started regulating the energy use of buildings. The structures that we live and work in consume more than 40% of all of the energy we use in our country, so making buildings more efficient was … Read More
In the old days, architects, such as the master builders of the great Gothic cathedrals, had complete control of the work, not just of the design of the buildings but their construction. Fast forward ten centuries and architects, having sloughed construction responsibilities off on to contractors, rely more and more … Read More
Residential construction projects, not website, that is… Ten Beausoleil designed projects are currently under construction in seven Bay Area municipalities from Capitola and Los Gatos in the south, up the Peninsula through San Carlos, Los Altos, Los Altos Hills, Hillsborough and Atherton, to San Francisco. We thought we would feature … Read More
Our design for a “Hampton’s” style home in Atherton at 19 Prado Secoya, which started construction just thirteen months ago, is now on the market. As usual, the developer and his general contractor, George Adair of Finish With Style, pushed the envelope with their efficient decision making and organization of … Read More
Please be sure to check out this article on the website Houzz, which features one of our recently completed new homes. Roots of Style: Château Architecture Strides Through a Century Live like a lord with design details that recall French estates of old, even if they’re scaled down and updated … Read More
A few years ago we were hired to help subdivide an irregular lot to build two houses. Using some creative loopholes in the Los Altos Zoning code, we were able to gain approvals for not two, but three new home sites. This watercolor rendering was part of the subdivision application. … Read More
In many parts of the world, for instance sub-Saharan Africa, rural India, the desert parts of latin America and even in China, there is a push to use solar cooking to reduce the amount of wood and charcoal burning, to reduce local environmental air pollution and to increase public safety. … Read More
This new home we designed for a private developer in Los Altos, Mansour Moussavian, sold in record time. The listing said “This exquisite New England style new home combines classic East Coast exterior with an easy flowing floor plan that includes fabulous modern living amenities. Just minutes away from … Read More
One of our clients in Los Altos for whom we designed a major residential remodel made the wise choice to deconstruct the existing home instead of simply demolishing it. The wood framing, bricks, fixtures, etc. can be reused and not just recycled. While deconstruction costs a little more than standard … Read More
