APPROACH
Started as an architecture firm, AT6 eventually morphed into a bit of an anomaly in our business: an architect-led design build company. While most design build firms are construction companies first, AT6 is at its core a group of residential architects committed to high-quality design work. Our projects can be found throughout the Bay Area, particularly in San Francisco, Marin County, and the East Bay.
What makes us truly unique is that paired with a full-service architecture firm is an in-house construction division that can seamlessly make your design a reality. Because we do both architecture and construction, we think about how your home will be built while we design, and we are thoughtful about how it looks while we build. By overlapping the architecture and construction processes, we are able to anticipate problems early and address them quickly and thoroughly.
We believe there is beauty in pragmatism. That form really does follow function. And that old homes injected with modern energy brilliantly support a 21st-century lifestyle. As modern architects, we create a dynamic dialogue between the history of your house and your family’s life today. Whether renovating or designing a new home, our goal is to create a modern living space without losing the warmth and richness that a connection to the past provides.
Our job is to balance the dream of what your home can be with the practicalities of making it come true, which means we give you realistic budgets before designing details that might have to be discarded later due to cost. The feasibility of every project, whether humble or luxe, hinges on budget, and we want to make sure you are getting the house you want for the resources you have. To that end, we guide you through a two-phase design process that aligns the scope and budget early on.
Before we get too distracted with the enjoyment of fully realizing your home’s design, we define the parameters of the project (conceptual drawings & a scope of work) to develop a detailed budget that allows us, and you, to move into the design build phase with confidence. No crossed fingers.
Having built confidence that the project is feasible, we can fully enjoy the fun part of designing your home. In this phase we further develop the initial concept to fully flesh out the architecture, blending aesthetics, functionality, sustainability, and constructability. This includes:
Energy efficiency. Green building. Sustainable design. Over the past couple of decades, these terms have gone from buzzwords to the blueprint for how our industry must move forward. We fully embrace our responsibility to sustainability as residential architects, because homes are large contributors to climate change. We see our role as guiding you through sustainability conversations and along that path in a way that works for both your project and the environment. Fortunately, as both architects and builders, we have control over actually implementing energy-efficient design, not just drawing up ideas.
