China Basin Architects

Simplify Design Create

You want to make your home somewhere you can live for many years. We partner with discerning individuals like you to unlock the true potential of their construction projects. With open minds, creative mastery, and a deep respect for your aspirations, we provide design services that empower you to transcend the ordinary and create useful spaces that feel just right. Whether you’re making a change to a house you’ve lived in for a long time or just moved and need it to work better for you, we can help design a space that you will love to wake up in each day.

Call us for a free consultation at 415-867-5357 or email mk@masonkirby.com.

China Basin Architects

Our Projects

Bronte

Aztec

Bernal Modern

We have multiple projects in progress and completed in China Basin, SF

Chapman-Mason-Kirby-Architects-Photography-Molly-Decoudreaux-017

China Basin Architects

How we work

Our methodology untangles the complexities of designing and building a home. We’ll guide and empower you all along the way, ensuring that your every decision brings you confidence and pride.

Timeless Design

We appreciate the rich tapestry of San Francisco’s vernacular architecture but are not beholden to it. Drawing inspiration from the City’s vibrant heritage and steep topography, we weave it into our contemporary approach, liberating homes from conventional boundaries. We diligently consider the environment and the community, then craft bespoke residences that go beyond the expected, becoming enduring symbols of individuality and beauty.

Collaboration

Great home design comes when you work with an architect to translate your ideas and aspirations into creative solutions. Every project is unique, so we spend a lot of time listening carefully to understand your needs, preferences, and budget. Then, collaborating with you, we apply our wide-ranging experience and meticulous process to bring their vision to life.

Evangelizing the Vision

Giving life to your home design means communicating that vision to contractors so they can build it and building authorities so that they can approve and permit the construction. In San Francisco, with its public policies to preserve neighborhood character, giving life to your project means persuading the neighborhood and municipal design review boards of the quality and appropriateness of your design.

Appropriate Technology

China Basin Architects

The plans submitted to the building department and the construction documents used by the builder are tailored for that purpose and easily intelligible by those building professionals. For everyone else, visualizing home design is a real challenge. To address this, we draft elevations, isometric views, and scale models for many projects during the conception and design development phases.

Through drawings and models, we can share rough concepts and massing among the team and with clients so they have opportunities to weigh in on significant design decisions. Then later in the final stages of development, these visualizations bring clarity to the discussions with all the stakeholders about the design.

China Basin Architects

We render these typically at a 1:50 or 1:100 scale, which means that a 1” on the model represents eight and a half feet in the real world. This massive change in scale is why we also use The Wild, a VR collaboration tool designed specifically for the building industry, to explore and design spaces in a virtual environment.

In the Wild, you see your home’s actual size. You can walk through and explore the space in real time, along with the architect and builder, so that you can understand and appreciate your design choices.

China Basin Architects

What our clients say

I can't really explain how great my experience working with Mason has been. He was completely involved through the whole process of designing an entire apartment out of a huge empty office room in our building. It's been almost a full year since we started, and I couldn't be happier. He has a great attention to detail and an imaginative mind. Being an opinionated person he did a great job of appealing to things that I knew I wanted, but also lending ideas when I was stuck. The space is well maximized, and the materials chosen are beautiful... Not to mention he hand welded a chandelier for the living room area. Mason (and also Karen) are great people, and great to work with. Absolutely recommended.

Mason has done 3 remodel projects with us. He's so great... He's helped us work out a vision for our crazy old house, and has been there with us every step of the way towards that vision. He's good with a budget, he'll tell you honestly when there's a way to bring the price down. He also has a great aesthetic sense. He even hand made a cool industrial chandelier for us.

Mason and his associates provided us with the kind of expertise that you always want when remodeling: he listens to what you want and helps you make the right decisions to make that happen. We can't use enough superlatives to describe his professionalism and attention to details. He not only helps you to manage the relationship with the tradespeople and vendors, but even with your spouse. He makes sure that everyone's ideas and concerns are heard and that solutions that actually satisfy everyone are implemented. He expertly and assuredly helped us navigate through our bathroom remodel and we'll be working with him in the future on remodeling the rest of our house.

We were looking to replace the foundations under our house, and convert some basement space into living space (a master suite). Mason worked with us to find a design solution that would maximize our available space and minimize our entanglement with the planning and 311 process. The solution he came up with originally seemed like it would not be feasible, but turned out to by far be the best, which we were able to complete with over-the-counter permits. Mason also helped us with selection and management of contractors and a structural engineer, and hand-held us all the way through the construction process. Mason is truly a stellar individual, and he's build an fabulous team of people that are lovelly to work with. He understands and helps work through house projects with nuance, sophistication and understanding and excellent communication. I highly recommend working with him and his team.

I hired Mason Kirby to design a 1000 square foot addition to my San Francisco home. I worked closely with Mason and his team over two years of design and construction to turn a cramped, antiquated cottage into a spacious modern home. Mason excels at the art of the possible, fluidly transforming unconventional and clever ideas into drawings, then masterfully navigating the arcane complexities of engineering and permitting to make those drawings into a reality. What I liked most about working with Mason was his personal involvement in the project from start to finish. I would unhesitatingly work with Mason again.

Mason helped me through the entire process of designing and building a beautiful apartment in a pre-existing space in our building. He designed with both efficiency and comfort in mind and I couldn't have asked for a better end result. I would absolutely work with him again, and recommend him highly.

Our long awaited remodel is finished, and we're thrilled with it. Mason Kirby was our architect, and I'd recommend him in a heartbeat.