Bodies of Water
At our Pacific Heights Residence, water is key to the spatial experience of this hillside home. Located on a steep, urban site with sweeping views of the San Francisco Bay and Golden Gate Bridge, the project uses a central swimming pool and garden terraces to weave together a sequence of indoor and outdoor rooms. While designed for exercise and recreation, the pool has an architectural role that goes beyond pure function. Light plays on the water’s surface, bouncing shimmery reflections on the courtyard walls. The rhythmic sound of lap swimming echoes throughout this complex three-dimensional composition and immersive landscape.
Stillness and contemplation define the role water plays at Walden, a Geyserville adaptive reuse project named for Theroux’s pond. The existing concrete agricultural building was once a prune packing plant, which Jensen transformed into an event space and residence. A shallow reflecting pool wraps around the eastern flank, making ambiguous the distinctions between what is architecture, landscape, and sky.
Mark Jensen imagined the design as a series of outdoor spaces in a sea of vineyards. “The intention was that standing on these landscaped piers would feel like being immersed within the vineyards, rather than just looking out at them,” he notes. “In practice the pier concept became more than metaphor: on occasion, the Russian River has flooded up to the plinth’s base.”
