Our online exhibit for San Francisco Design Week, “Bay Area Made Workspaces”, showcases the studios, workshops, and factories where Bay Area Made member companies make everything from home & garden, apparel & accessories, food & beverage, and body & bath products. Below are highlights of the exhibit with images of the wide variety of workspaces around the Bay where the 25+ exhibiting companies create their products including live-work lofts, backyard studios, converted shipping containers, artists’ studios, industrial buildings, warehouses, eco-industrial parks, greenhouses, and former military buildings.
Click here to view the full exhibit, where you will also learn about the products they make, the tools and materials they use, and their making process. We hope this look behind the scenes gives you a greater understanding and appreciation of what goes into making high quality products – and inspires you to support your local makers.
Above, top to bottom: Anna Monet Jewelry, Stella Fluorescent
Anna Monet Jewelry
“I’ve been working at the Scintillant Jewelry Studio for seven years. Scintillant is a workshop located in the heart of the Mission district of San Francisco, right on Valencia between 23rd and 24th streets. The building used to be a law firm back in the day, and after Adam Clark, an owner of Scintillant and master craftsman, came across it became a space for our creative community to flourish. What I love about it the most is the shared spirit of creativity that comes from many artisans of all walks of life that work at Scintillant. We share the space, learn from each other, and create together. I consider myself incredibly lucky to be in that space.”
Above, top to bottom: Manos by Concreteworks, Veso
Veso
“At Veso, we produce our aperitifs in a winery on Treasure Island (technically in San Francisco, which is great because we are legally allowed to put “produced on San Francisco” on the labels). Our winery is a shared winery space, almost like a co-op, that has several wineries operating under the same roof. We share equipment and tools and operating alongside other winemakers also allows me the opportunity to learn from other experts.
Treasure Island was originally built for the 1939 World’s Fair (the island is an artificial, man-made island), and then afterwards was used as a naval base during World War II. The building that our winery operates out of is an old Navy Commissary kitchen and is a large building with tall ceilings that now houses tanks, barrels, and all the other equipment needed to produce wine.”
Above, top to bottom: SKINNY, soft-geometry
soft-geometry
“The studio is an extension of the founder’s home in San Francisco – an 800 sq ft living space that operates as an office and studio for soft-geometry. All lighting pieces are handmade here along with parts of products that are handwoven or sewn. The best part of the space is its 20 ft window that spans the wall bathing the space in wonderful natural light.”
Above, top to bottom: Blue Plate, Entrelanas Designs
Blue Plate
“I work in my studio located in my backyard. It’s a refurbished 8×16 ft shipping container, and has a potter’s wheel, wedging area, a sink, and shelves for ceramic work. I currently mostly fire my pieces in a community kiln in the Bay Area.”
Above, top to bottom: Jason Lees Design, Aplat
Aplat
“The best part of the Aplat Studio is the location. We are just off 3rd street in Bayview, San Francisco, and across the street is one of three of our local cut-sew factories. It’s always sunny in Bayview, so our studio gets excellent light all day for great in-studio photoshoots.
We have a simple test kitchen for chefs and culinary partners to share recipes and collaborative photos. For prototyping, I have three sewing machines but will soon fill out to be six machines to run small batch production in-house. It’s an open space, but we make it work.”
Above, top to bottom: Bespoke Watch Projects, Lacson Ravello
Lacson Ravello
“I work out of our detached home studio located in North Oakland—where I sketch, design, draft patterns, cut/sew samples, and more. My husband John of Bespoke Watch Projects (also a Bay Area Made brand) shares the space, which allows us to collaborate, bounce ideas off each other, and blast our favorite 80’s music. The natural light is great, the high ceilings are lofty, and the morning commute is rather easy.”
Above, top to bottom: Heath Ceramics, Model No.Furniture
Heath Ceramics
“Heath has three primary locations, located in Sausalito, San Francisco, and Los Angeles. Our Sausalito building is the original factory designed and built by the Heaths in the 1950s, which now houses our dinnerware manufacturing facility, a showroom, administrative offices and our Tile Shed, where overstock tile is sold to the public.
In San Francisco, we occupy a large portion of a LEED-Certified building in the Mission District, where we have our tile manufacturing, a large showroom, administrative and design offices, the Heath Clay Studio, and the Heath Newsstand.
We have a small showroom inside the Ferry Building and another showroom in Los Angeles, where a small Clay Studio also operates.”
Above, top to bottom: Botnia Skincare, Oja Design
Oja Design
“My home/studio/woodshop is located in a renovated grocery store in an old 1930’s brick building in the small Bay Area town of Crockett, CA.”
Above, top to bottom: Jay Morgan Handcraft, YOLOTLI
YOLOTLI
“Nicole’s studio is situated in the backyard of her Napa home and is flooded with sunlight through its west-facing large sliding glass door. Outside her door and across a 15-foot redwood deck lies her husband’s studio, fine artist Mikey Kelly. The “his and hers” setup of their workspaces gives them enough space to work on their own projects and allows them to meet and brainstorm easily when they collaborate.”
Above, top to bottom: Juniper Ridge, MOkun
Juniper Ridge
“Juniper Ridge is located at O2AA, an eco-industrial park located in West Oakland. O2AA is home to a network of artisans working collectively to develop and promote environmentally progressive projects.”
Above, top to bottom: Habitat Horticulture, Galanter & Jones
Galanter & Jones
“Our space is an old 10,000 sq ft warehouse in the Bayview district of San Francisco. It’s got incredible redwood beams and funky interiors from a different era. It’s also got two roll-up doors and one loading dock, which is incredibly helpful. It came with a battery-operated forklift from 1920 that still works! When we moved in, we occupied about half the space and made modifications that divide the space and created a flow (of sorts). Eventually, other tenants moved out and we were able to absorb their square footage as well, which is good because even now we are busting at the seams. We’re lucky to have a landlord that is supportive of local manufacturing and encourages us to stay by offering a reasonable rate. Otherwise, we would have moved out of San Francisco long ago.”
Above, top to bottom: Heliotrope, Farmhouse Lab
Heliotrope
“We do almost all our in-house production in our Oakland studio, which is in the Artthaus Studios building in Oakland’s Jingletown neighborhood. We do all bottling, labeling, and distribution from our studio as well. It’s a large, shared building – with close to 100 studios and offices containing many other makers, as well as non-profits, and other professional services. The Artthaus building is over 100 years old – it started out as a Del Monte canning plant and has also been a printing plant along the way, until a local real estate developer refurbished it and opened it around 5 years ago.”
Image at top of page, left to right: Herderin, Oja Design, MMclay
View the full “Bay Area Made Workspaces” exhibit on the SF Design Week website here.
