Kaiyo Rooftop
William Duff Architects
WDA’s work for Kaiyo Rooftop, located atop a 12-story hotel in San Francisco’s SOMA neighborhood, realizes a visionary client’s desire to create a destination rooftop oasis within the urban landscape. Richly textured design elements echo an inventive Japanese-Peruvian menu, while capturing a cross- cultural vibe that feels at once appealingly familiar, and intriguingly exotic. On the rooftop, a steel- framed, open-air pergola structure with an Ipe wood ceiling houses the bar. The bar features a luminescent quartzite top over a vibrant green base composed of handmade tile. Completing the tropical look are woven light pendants and framing the back bar’s wood shelving is a custom metal screen designed with Modern Metal Designs, whose abstract pattern is a subtle nod to the Kaiyo logo. The project’s technically challenging parameters notwithstanding, the resulting fusion of cuisine, design and architecture is an aesthetically well considered journey into another world.