Kendrae Hunter

Commercial · Workplace & retail

National Geographic West Coast HQ

The Horizon’s Edge: where land, water and sky meet

Render of the National Geographic café with timber, sage seating and a cloud-like ceiling

To me the horizon stands for exploration, possibility and the pursuit of knowledge, which reflects National Geographic’s mission.

Location
The Presidio, San Francisco
Building
Existing two stories over a basement, cement plaster with a red clay tile roof
Size
6,600 sq ft per floor
Program
Lobby, store, café, exhibition, offices, reception, meeting & conference rooms
Course
IAD 440
Software
Revit

01 · Concept

The Horizon’s Edge

Set in the Presidio with views of the Golden Gate, the interior connects to the outdoors as a sustainable biophilic hub that honors the site’s history and supports exploration, education and community engagement.

Biophilia and biomimicry, maximized daylight, adaptive reuse of the historic structure, energy-efficient lighting and low-impact finishes.

Concept mood board of horizon landscapes, natural textures and earthy colors

02 · Research

Precedents

Client history, site, climate and demographics, plus precedent studies of Second Home Hollywood by Selgascano, the Blanton Museum of Art and Aesop Grand Central.

03 · Organization

From outward exploration to inward reflection

The first floor is a public spine of lobby, exhibition, retail and café. The second floor holds staff offices around a central core.

First-floor furniture plan: lobby, exhibition, store and café
Second-floor furniture plan: offices, meeting and conference rooms

04 · Process

Thinking by hand

Hand sketches of the café, conference room, reception and kitchenette
Bubble diagram of first-floor adjacencies

05 · Reception & café

Warm, open, hospitable

The reception balances warmth, openness and hospitality, and the café is a flexible social space for informal meetings and individual work.

Render of the reception area
Render of the café

06 · Furniture

Selections

Reception furniture board
Café plan, elevations and details

07 · Technical

Accessible by design

An ADA restroom with universal-design notes (5′-0″ turning radius, grab bars at 33″–36″ AFF), a plumbing-fixture calculation, two-hour fire-rated walls, egress paths and a preliminary lighting plan.

ADA restroom plan and elevations with clearances and grab bar heights

Selections

Specified finishes & furniture

  • Four Hands Lyla sofa and Bingham coffee table
  • Sunpan Sanibel rug
  • CSI Creative Profile Framed Clouds and folded baffles
  • TileBar tile
  • Ferm Living Mineral café table
  • Benjamin Moore Oak Grove
  • Behr Misty Coast

Canyon browns, sage greens, stone grays, horizon blues and golden earth tones, used for wayfinding and well-being.

Outcome

A headquarters that feels like the outdoors

Research, precedents, diagrams, furniture and lighting plans, hand sketches, design development and code-informed technical drawings for a mixed-use headquarters in a historic building.

Credits

Individual student project, Academy of Art University, IAD 440.