In Business Since: 1986
For more information and to see photographs, please visit our website at www.markbrandarchitecture.com. The award-winning studio of Mark Brand Architecture presents through its projects a balanced combination of high design with practicality, of understated elegance with elements of drama.  For almost 20 years our firm has specialized in quality new homes and major remodels and additions.  Our portfolio also includes multi-family housing, shops, offices and restaurants.  Located on a variety of sites, including difficult hillsides and tight city lots, our designs have been published in major national magazines such as Metropolitan Home and Home, and featured in the San Francisco Examiner. We are experienced in dealing with the Planning and Building departments of communities throughout the Bay Area.  We excel in working with neighbors and local residents, and have a proven track record in gaining the support of Planning Departments for our designs.  We have successfully obtained variances for our clients and defended their projects, both before Planning Commissions and Boards of Permit Appeals. Stylistically, our work would best be described as eclectic, favoring no single style.  Our widely diverse new residences have included traditional projects such as the craftsman style “House in Pacifica” and the mission style “House above Pacifica” as well as edgier work like the “Milkshake Condominium” and “House in the Richmond District“.  A synthesis of historical and modernist influences resulted in our “House in Dolores Heights.”  Similarly varied, our remodeling/addition projects have ranged from the Victorian restoration “Noe Valley Addition and Remodel” and Classically influenced “Balboa Terrace Remodel” to the more cutting edge “Cow Hollow Remodel.” Mark Brand Architecture works closely with our clients to control construction costs.  In addition to helping make “value engineering” choices, we review construction contracts and negotiate with builders and contractors.  When appropriate we use a trusted, professional cost estimator at critical points in the design process to avoid costly redesign and redrawing later in the process.   Having worked for years with the same core group of consultants and engineers, we are able to supply our clients with carefully coordinated sets of drawings.  Mark Brand Architecture is firmly committed to comprehensive project documentation to avoid costly problems during construction. Ultimately our goal is to see our clients satisfied with a built project.  We work hard to maintain a creative and efficient relationship between the owner, architect and contractor through completion of construction.  We feel that our job is both to design inspired buildings and to execute these concepts in the real world of the built environment.

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Community Involvement

Expertise

• Design-wise 1997 Illinois Design Excellence Award for Interiors
• 1992 Citation by San Francisco Chapter of American Institute of Architects

Other Affiliations