Architect Visit: Boor Bridges in San Francisco

In a city where every square foot comes with sticker shock, San Francisco architects Boor Bridges
have quietly turned “small and awkward” into “wow, can I move in today?” Their Remodelista-famous
cottageonce the Betty May School of Dance and now an 840-square-foot design laboratoryshows how
thoughtful architecture can turn a former studio into a warm, flexible home with serious personality.

This is not a mega-mansion tour with three guest wings and a pool shaped like an avocado.
Instead, think alley cottage, dinged floorboards, skylights, hanging terrariums, and built-ins
that do the heavy lifting. It’s the kind of project that Remodelista loves: modest footprint,
meticulous detailing, and a design story that regular humans can actually apply at home.

In this architect visit, we’ll walk through who Boor Bridges are, what makes this San Francisco
cottage so compelling, how their work across the cityfrom cafes to tech officesshares the same
DNA, and which small-space design lessons you can steal for your own remodel.

Who Are Boor Bridges, Anyway?

Before we zoom in on one little cottage, it helps to know the minds behind it. Boor Bridges
Architecturenow part of Boor Projectsis a San Francisco–based studio led by Seth Boor and
Bonnie Bridges. The firm describes itself as an atelier of designers fueled by collaboration,
dialogue, and invention, with a strong respect for local context and everyday materials.

Their work is everywhere once you start looking: beloved coffee shops like Sightglass, The Mill,
and Four Barrel; tech offices for companies such as Dropbox, Stripe, and Lumosity; and a string
of inventive small-scale spaces that have helped shape how the Bay Area eats, works, and hangs
out.

Design critics regularly point out the firm’s talent for transforming industrial or humble
shells into light-filled, communal spacesoften blending rustic textures with crisp, modern
lines. In a city known for restrictive planning rules and quirky buildings, Boor Bridges has made
a name by working with the constraints, not against them.

The Little Cottage That Could: From Dance School to Designer Retreat

The cottage featured in Remodelista’s “Architect Visit: Boor Bridges in San Francisco” began its
life as the Betty May School of Dance. That history is literally underfoot: the floors are
dinged, pockmarked, and worn in a way that no new engineered plank could ever fake. Rather than
sanding the past away, the architects leaned into it, letting the imperfections become part of
the narrative.

Later, the building evolved into an alley studio before being reimagined as a compact living
space. For Boor, it was a side project and a design experiment: how much fun and functionality
could you cram into about 800 square feet without making it feel like a storage unit with better
lighting?

A Tiny Footprint With Big Personality

At roughly 840 square feet, the cottage is smaller than many one-bedroom apartments, but the
layout is anything but cramped. Boor Bridges approached the project like a boat interior or a
well-designed cabinevery inch needed a job. There are built-in benches that double as storage,
multipurpose surfaces that shift from desk to dining table, and carefully planned circulation
paths that keep the space from feeling like a maze.

Instead of relying on bulky furniture, the architecture itself becomes the furniture. Low walls
define zones without cutting them off. Shelves climb up toward the ceiling, pulling the eye
vertically and making the cottage feel taller and more spacious than its footprint suggests.

Light, Volume, and the 840-Square-Foot Puzzle

Light is the real luxury in a compact home, and the cottage is designed to capture every bit of
it. Borrowed light between rooms, skylights, and large windows help the interior remain bright
throughout the day, a strategy Boor has used in many of his projectsfrom cafes to officesto
make deep floor plates feel welcoming instead of cavernous.

The ceiling height is carefully exploited: lofted storage, tall shelving, and art hung higher
than you’d expect all create a sense of vertical spaciousness. In a typical remodel, people
obsess over square footage; here, it’s cubic footage that does the heavy lifting.

Materials That Tell a Story

If you’ve seen Boor Bridges’ cafes and offices, you know their material palette tends to mix
plywood, reclaimed wood, metal, glass, and concrete in ways that feel both industrial and human.
The cottage follows that script but on a quieter, residential scale.

The original dance floor remains, scars and all. Simple white walls bounce light around and give
visual breathing room. Custom millwork adds warmth and function without shouting for attention.
And then there’s that hanging terrariuma tiny glass bubble of green that Remodelista singled
out as a favorite detail. It’s playful, low maintenance, and a reminder that even the most
carefully edited modern space needs a bit of organic chaos.

A Signature San Francisco Look

What makes this project feel distinctly “Boor Bridges in San Francisco” rather than just
“minimal cottage, could be anywhere”? The same design instincts that shape their larger Bay Area
projects show up herejust miniaturized.

Industrial-Rustic, But Make It Warm

Across multiple projects, Boor Bridges leans into an industrial–rustic hybrid: exposed structure,
honest materials, and a kind of functional heroism that celebrates how things are put together.

In their cafesSightglass, Four Barrel, The Millyou’ll see steel, raw wood, and concrete paired
with warm lighting, greenery, and handcrafted details. In the tech offices they’ve designed,
you’ll find the same DNA: mullioned glass, distinctive custom lighting, and curated antique
pieces mixed with modern furnishings for character.

The cottage channels that vibe in a softer, more domestic way. Industrial bones meet a lived-in
warmth, and nothing feels over-styled. If the cafes are where you meet your friends, this little
house is where you’d want to come back and nap afterwards.

A Love Affair With Cafes and Community Spaces

One reason this cottage resonates so strongly is that Boor Bridges has spent years designing
places where people actually like to linger. Their portfolio of San Francisco coffee shops is a
kind of living laboratory for how light, acoustics, seating, and circulation shape behavior.

The same lessons show up in the cottage:

• Clear sightlines that make the space feel intuitive.
• Comfortable yet compact seating that encourages conversation without wasting space.
• Textural layeringwood, plants, textilesto prevent minimalism from feeling sterile.

The result is a home that behaves like a favorite neighborhood cafe: relaxed, social, and easy
to inhabit, even when the square footage is tight.

Small-Space Lessons You Can Steal for Your Own Remodel

You may not have a former dance school in an alley off a San Francisco street (if you do, call
an architect immediately), but the principles behind this project are portable.

1. Treat the Floor as a History Book

Instead of erasing every sign of wear, consider which marks actually add character. In the
cottage, the old dance floor scratches are a reminder of what the building used to beand they
keep the otherwise clean interior from feeling too precious. A refinished but imperfect floor
can act as an anchor in a minimalist space.

2. Design Built-Ins Like a Tiny House

Boor Bridges’s small residential projects often rely on built-ins instead of bulky furniture:
benches with storage, integrated desks, and wall-to-wall shelving. Think of every fixed element
as doing at least two jobs: seating plus storage, partition plus bookcase, platform plus bed.

3. Use Vertical Space Aggressively

In an 840-square-foot footprint, you don’t have the luxury of sprawling out, so you go up.
Install tall shelving, use wall hooks and rails, and consider lofted zones where codes and
headroom allow. Boor Bridges’s office studio in the Tenderloin uses similar strategies, making
a 5,500-square-foot studio feel open yet efficient despite housing an entire design team.

4. Borrow From Cafe Design

If you love how relaxed you feel in your favorite San Francisco cafe, copy it. Think:

• Warm, layered lighting instead of one harsh overhead fixture.
• Multiple seating types (stools, benches, chairs) to suit different moods.
• Plants or terrariums to soften hard surfaces and improve acoustics.

Boor Bridges’s cafes are essentially case studies in how people like to sit, talk, and work in
publicand those insights translate directly into residential interiors.

5. Let One Quirky Detail Be the Star

In this cottage, the hanging terrarium is a small but memorable moment. You don’t need dozens of
“wow” pieces; you just need one or two elements that people remember. That could be a dramatic
pendant light, a sculptural handrail, or a custom cabinet with unexpected color inside.

How Boor Bridges Helped Shape the San Francisco Look

Look around the city and you’ll see their influence in more than just one cottage. From
the Sightglass locations to Flora Grubb Gardens to tech offices like Lumosity’s, Boor Bridges
has been part of a larger shift toward bright, communal, flexible spaces that favor authenticity
over flash.

Articles in regional and design media often frame their work as a smart response to the Bay
Area’s constraints: tight lots, strict zoning, older building stock, and sky-high expectations.
Instead of fighting those realities, Boor Bridges treat them as promptsreworking warehouses
into cafes, reimagining offices for new ways of working, and turning tiny buildings into
unusually generous homes.

The Remodelista cottage is a perfect snapshot of that attitude. It’s not about adding more; it’s
about editing smarter and letting the building’s story stay visible.

My Architect Visit: A Boor Bridges–Inspired Day in San Francisco

Spending a day tracing Boor Bridges’s work around San Francisco feels a bit like following a
design scavenger hunt. You start smallat the cottage leveland then zoom out to experience how
similar ideas scale up into public spaces.

Imagine beginning in a narrow alley, standing in front of the former Betty May School of Dance.
From the outside, the cottage is quiet, almost shy, but once you step in, the space unfolds:
light from clerestory windows, the scuffed floor telling stories of decades of rehearsals, the
smell of coffee drifting from a compact but efficient kitchen. You notice how there’s nowhere
for clutter to hide, yet nothing feels sparse or cold. The built-ins feel inevitable, as if the
building had grown its own furniture over time.

After lingering there, you head toward one of Boor Bridges’s better-known public projects,
maybe The Mill on Divisadero or a Sightglass cafe. You step inside and recognize the same
vocabulary from the cottage: timber, concrete, metal, generous daylight, and a clear sequence
from entry to ordering to sitting that just “makes sense” without needing signage. The scale is
obviously differentlong communal tables instead of a single dining nookbut the underlying
priorities match: comfort, legibility, and warmth.

Sitting with a coffee, you start to notice the details. How the lighting softens toward the
perimeter, inviting you to stay a while. How materials that could feel hardsteel, concrete,
glassare balanced with plants, textiles, and hand-finished wood. You realize these are the same
strategies that make a tiny home or apartment feel livable: layering textures, curating views,
and using light as a design tool rather than an afterthought.

Later, if you visit one of the tech offices Boor Bridges has designed or their own studio in the
Tenderloin, you see yet another version of the same story. Workstations arranged to catch light,
meeting spaces defined by simple but confident moves, and a careful balance between openness and
intimacy. Even in a 5,500-square-foot studio, the logic behind the 840-square-foot cottage still
applies: edit ruthlessly, use materials honestly, and build in ways that encourage people to
connect.

By the end of the day, the throughline is hard to miss. Whether you’re in a tiny alley cottage,
a buzzing cafe, or a busy office, Boor Bridges’s work is less about spectacle and more about
creating spaces that feel intuitive and grounded. The Remodelista-featured cottage is just one
chapter in that larger story, but it’s a particularly useful one because it translates big,
urban design ideas into something you can actually try in your own home: honor your building’s
history, design your storage like a tiny house, borrow tricks from your favorite public spaces,
and never underestimate the power of a single, delightful detail.

If you’re planning a remodelwhether you live in a Victorian flat, a suburban ranch house, or a
micro-apartmentthe lesson from Boor Bridges in San Francisco is simple: thoughtful architecture
can make even the smallest spaces feel expansive, generous, and deeply personal. And if you
happen to add a hanging terrarium or two along the way, well, Remodelista won’t complain.