Explore - Small Space

When an urban expat couple decided to build the suburban house they wanted rather than the one their neighbors expected, they ended up with a spare but airy jewel box and no wooden shingles.

Tucked into the side of a scenic San Francisco hill, one of the city’s more diminutive houses battles everything from dry rot to obstructionist neighbors in order to grow up.

It could have been a Sheetrock box, but as the house’s most frequently used point of entry, it deserved the same architectural respect.

If not for the dawn appearance of the bear, which came loping toward Maem Slater-Enns and her then six-month-old daughter as they sat contemplating the water, the Enns family might still be...

“A strategy of extreme density was required,” says Michael Chen of Normal Projects, 
who along with partner Kari Anderson handled the renovation of this Upper West Side apartment.