Mithun

Today, we are highlighting 400 China Basin in the Mission Bay neighborhood of San Francisco for #AffordableHousingMonth. Celebrated as a “unicorn” project, the project offers a rare opportunity for first-time home ownership in a prime location to middle and low-income households. Serving the missing middle, it fills a crucial gap for households making too much for traditional subsidized housing but too little to afford market-rate housing in San Francisco, with priority for descendants of historically displaced families. 400 China Basin features 148 family-sized units and 360-degree views of the Bay, piers, surrounding bike trails and city skyline that reinforce residents’ connection with place. City and nature are also reflected in the façade, which is inspired by the play of light off the water, with canted stucco panels and material contrasts. Pops of orange pay homage to the San Francisco Giants, whose stadium is visible from the rooftop. Parklex wood finishes initiate a consistent dialogue between gathering spaces, including the ground-floor lounge, bike/teen room, eighth floor community room, and stairwell to the ninth floor terrace. The project was developed by Curtis Development, Michael Simmons Property Development and Young Community Developers (@ycd_jobs ). Mithun led the architectural design in collaboration with @y.a.studio , associate architect. The all-electric and energy-efficient design achieved GreenPoint Rated Platinum certification. Learn more via link in bio. 📷: Patrik Argast

It’s Affordable Housing Month! We are excited to highlight collaborations with mission driven organizations and underserved communities across the West Coast to develop essential social and cultural infrastructure. Oscar James Residences, completed in 2025, provides 112 new homes for low-income families in the redeveloped Hunters Point Shipyard area. As a single non-contiguous project on Blocks 52 and 54, the two buildings are designed to create pride of place for both residents and neighbors, with a crisp, clean material palette and massing that embraces the taut vertical proportions of San Francisco’s distinct contextual character. The project’s eponym Oscar James is a revered, longtime community activist and elder in San Francisco’s Bayview-Hunters Point neighborhood, honored for his 50-plus years of advocacy for housing justice, senior services and Black community stability. A trio of outdoor, community and fitness rooms work together to create an active hub at the building entrance. The day-lit community room (images 1 and 2) supports gathering and socialization for a wide range of ages. Varied seating zones, including lounge seating, banquets, café tables and kitchen island stools, allow different postures while remaining flexible to community needs. An acoustically performing wave ceiling design, visible from the outside, serves as a defining feature of the corner space. Artwork features cultural history that enhances residents’ relationship with place. Project developed by Bayview Senior Services and Jonathan Rose Companies. Designed by Mithun (architecture, interior design and landscape architecture) in association with Kerman Morris Architects. Learn more via link in bio. 📷: @brucedamonte #AffordableHousingMonth #DesignforPositiveChange

In 2024, our coLAB team launched an internal design installation call for entries that aims to showcase the talent and creativity of Mithun’s team members. The annual initiative invites proposals that beautify or transform underutilized spaces within our three offices. Interested participants in 2025 were tasked with the ideation and execution of a design that would creatively fill a blank wall on Pier 56. Mithun designer Jason Yan spearheaded a collaborative woodworking project that applies the Japanese technique of kumiko and is titled “Mithumiko.” The sculpture’s geometric framework is upheld purely through pressure-fitted joinery, without any nails or adhesive. Inspired by Mithun’s culture of collaborative, non-hierarchal design, the project relies on the collective strength of every piece to uphold its structural integrity. Every Mithun office location received jigs, tools and sections of the sculpture to maximize participation with sawing and assembly. We are proud to support diverse programs that advance exploration in design and the arts as a complement to our day-to-day projects. By integrating art and the hands-on process of creation within our multidisciplinary design practice, we increase our capacity to craft beautiful, culturally relevant and wonderful places to live, learn, work and connect. Learn more about creative enrichment at Mithun via link in bio.

In honor of Earth Day and World Landscape Architecture Month, we’re celebrating the new @nationalasla Climate & Biodiversity Action Plan, which outlines essential knowledge to guide ecologically-rich design, foster strategic partnerships and drive meaningful action. Members of the ASLA Climate & Biodiversity Action Committee, including Mithun’s Deb Guenther and Christian Runge, are shaping concrete strategies for mitigating the global biodiversity crisis through design and planning work. Visit the link in bio to explore “Biodiversity Primer for Landscape Architects: Essential Knowledge to Inform Meaningful Action,” with resources to help landscape architects and allied fields apply the Action Plan to projects. The renovation of Richmond Highlands Park demonstrates how the implementation of these strategies can produce a valuable community resource that enhances regional ecological resilience. The design team dove into the history of this urban site and explored its past as meadow lands. The uplands that now comprise the City of Shoreline were shaped by Coast Salish land-care practices, including systematic burning that sustained open meadows within the regional forest matrix. The design team referenced the movement and feeling of meadows along with the drama of fire-born rejuvenation for the aesthetic of the park, using it to guide plant selection, play and sensory equipment, site furnishings and material colors. A sensory garden incorporates both native and adapted plants to create a highly diverse mix of grasses, perennials, shrubs and trees. Continuous blooming attracts diverse pollinators across the growing season, while new trees lay the groundwork for future canopy shade and heat sinks. Together, these design strategies enhance remnant ecosystems to provide stepping stones or habitat corridors that reconnect habitat fragments, while remaining responsive to changing environmental conditions. Progressive design-build delivery in collaboration with @forma_cc and @KPFF_sea . 📷: Meghan Montgomery / @builtworkphotography

The @ucsc Rachel Carson Dining Hall plaza inspires gathering and connections along a heavily trafficked thoroughfare. Widened, gently graded pathways replace old stairwells – allowing universal access to the pedestrian bridge below and the rest of campus. The open space encourages students to pause and socialize as they traverse the hilly terrain. A central lawn welcomes relaxation, and decorative stone outcrops provide additional seating. Doors from both the Great Hall and Market Hall open onto the landscaped plaza to accommodate large indoor/outdoor events. At the main entrance, a generous overhang provides sun shading and clear building signage for visitors arriving from multiple directions. The window pattern aligns with existing Rachel Carson building precedents and brings in fresh coastal breezes. Directly inside, the Market Hall is a biophilic, daylit space with salvaged California redwood ceilings, and views out to the courtyard, landscape and ocean beyond. 📷: @brucedamonte

The Regents of the University of California recently approved @UCLA 's plans to build new $351 million high-rise student housing in Westwood at 901 Levering Ave. The project represents a significant expansion of residential capacity in support of the university’s housing guarantee for all interested first-year and transfer students. Mithun is providing integrated architecture, interior design and landscape architecture for the 19-story, 297,000 sf tower. The building will accommodate up to 1,130 students, predominantly in four-bedroom (double occupancy) apartments, with a double height study commons and student support spaces. A cruciform footprint creates a more harmonious contextual urban presence and maximizes daylighting and views at apartments and shared lounge areas. This approach helps define purposeful landscaped terraces for gathering at the ground level, offering students connection to natural elements in a tight urban space. The efficient design incorporates high-performing building systems and envelope, and is targeting LEED Gold certification. Learn more via link in bio. Image by Mithun.

We are thrilled to share that Washington School for the Deaf (@wsdterriers ), Divine Academic and Hunter Gymnasium won the Association for Learning Environments @a4le_pnw Pinnacle Award! A4LE project awards celebrate outstanding educational planning and design of preK-12 facilities. It is an honor to be recognized for the project’s rigorous programming process, exceptional design interventions and positive impact on teaching and learning. The progressive design-build team of @Skanskausa and Mithun collaborated closely with Washington School for the Deaf students, staff and stakeholders to ensure their new academic, administrative and physical education spaces supported learning and development for every occupant. The design centers the Deaf experience and supports occupant well-being — reducing stress, improving daylighting and increasing engagement in a conducive, home-like learning environment tuned to maximize American Sign Language (ASL) / English bilingual instructional practices, equipping students to thrive. Learn more about this remarkable project and school community via link in bio. Photos by @laraswimmer / @estophoto

Overlooking the San Francisco Bay shoreline, 400 China Basin provides first-time home ownership opportunities for middle and low-income households in the growing Mission Bay neighborhood. The project offers critical housing affordability in a prime location with convenient access to jobs and transit. The development features thoughtfully designed common spaces to accommodate all age groups, from young children and teens to adults, including a family terrace, business center, and generous eighth floor community room. Residents benefit from proximity to Mission Bay parks and amenities, and a regional bike route. The second-story courtyard and spacious roof deck offer spectacular views across a new waterfront park and the Bay, reinforcing connection with place and the greater neighborhood. The innovative, below-market-rate ownership housing project is developed by Curtis Development, Michael Simmons Property Development and Young Community Developers. Mithun led the architectural design in collaboration with @y.a.studio , associate architect. The all-electric building is on target for GreenPoint Platinum certification. Learn more via link in bio.

The @IndustrialCommons (TIC) Innovation Campus will transform a 27-acre brownfield site in Morganton, NC into a mixed-use light-industrial hub that embodies circularity and regenerative design, and provides a healthy, dignified work and training environment for worker-owned enterprises. The new, sustainable hub will inspire occupants and visitors to activate community connections, and strengthen the network of values-aligned textile manufactures in the Southern Appalachian textile belt. A new, 43,000 sf building will house a manufacturing accelerator space, skilled training, flexible classroom spaces, TIC offices, galleries and a gathering space for welcoming, interacting and connecting with community and visitors. Reclaimed materials include storm salvaged wood for doors and interior finishes, and acoustical panels made by TIC from upcycled fabric. The design introduces daylighting with skylights and clerestories, as well as biophilic connections to nature using a wood structure and views. Cross laminated timber, glulam beams and premanufactured structural insulated wall panels will be combined to create a healthy worker environment and achieve low embodied carbon. Site preparation is underway, with major construction activities anticipated to begin in May. The project team includes Mithun (architecture, interior design, urban design and planning), Baumgartner Urban Systems Strategy (BUSS) (vision/strategy), @FastEpp (structural engineer), @Stantec (civil, envelope and acoustics), @NelsonByrdWoltz (landscape architecture and master planning), @Buro_Happold (MEP), PAE (MEP for schematic design), @Biohabitats (ecology), M.Thrailkill (specifications) and @HKA_nyc (code). The general contractor is Davis Construction, with support from @timberlabinc for mass timber.

The Museum of Pop Culture (@mopopseattle ) Café and Lounge is featured in @archrecordmag as part of its Civic coverage! Richard Franko and Elizabeth Gordon discuss Mithun’s approach to working within the hyper-sculptural museum, designed by Frank Gehry and completed in 2000. In the reimagined hospitality spaces, sinuous forms and a simplified palette provide a more welcoming visitor experience that sits comfortably within the existing shell. “We thought of our design as an extension of what was already there… creating shapes and forms that related to the original architecture, and contrasting the daytime-feel café experience with the moodier lounge,” says partner and interior designer Elizabeth Gordon. Read the full article by Matt Hickman via link in bio. 📷: @k7scott

Most wood used in the built environment travels thousands of miles before reaching a construction site, severing its connection to the forests, people and economies it comes from. Standard specifications make it easy to procure wood but hard to understand its true impact. Mithun’s Sustainable Wood Sourcing Specifications R+D project is redefining what responsible sourcing looks like in practice by rebuilding the connection between material origin and design intent. These open-source CSI-format specifications turn decades of dispersed research into actionable standards. Each section provides a template for designers and builders to connect with regional foresters, salvagers and small producers. Together, they form a framework for transparent, ethical material supply chains. By connecting material supply to social and ecological systems, these specifications invite a shift from transactional procurement toward stewardship. Learn more about this Mithun R+D study and download four model specifications for salvaged and reclaimed wood, certified wood, land trust wood and forest restoration wood at the link in bio. 📷: @k7scott (Featured in photos are salvaged wood benches at Heartline and reception desk at Mithun Pier 56)

The @north_seattle_college Library renovation reimagines an aging campus building as a contemporary and accessible Information Commons. New collaborative spaces, including a Teaching and Learning Center, Student Media Center and Print Media Space are organized around a central, social “living room” that showcases the facility’s evolution into a flexible learning environment. Reorganized entries, improved wayfinding and program adjacencies improve cohesion and the overall experience for visitors to the academic anchor. The main level serves as a hub of activity, with modern, technology-enabled classrooms, group study zones and a 168-seat performance hall. Expanded quiet study areas, book collections, information desks and computer stations on the upper level sustain an inclusive, intuitive environment. Informal spaces throughout mirror the settings found in a contemporary workplace. The LEED Gold-certified design features energy efficient upgrades, daylight harvesting systems and improved indoor air quality to enhance student wellbeing. Strengthened seismic resilience extends the facility’s life or 50 years. Mithun provided architecture and interior design services. 📷: @laraswimmer / @estophoto