Burt Children's Center Renovation
San Francisco, CA

Our challenge was to convert a 1920's landmark quality mansion into a secured residential treatment center for severely disturbed children, while maintaining the original design character and residential feeling. Hamilton + Aitken achieved this goal by paying attention to details, protecting and restoring historic elements, and designing for durability and ease of maintenance.

The conversion created new living quarters for staff and children, classrooms, family-style living and dining spaces, and a full commercial kitchen. The first floor was converted to classrooms, offices and a multipurpose room overlooking a large fenced yard. Careful and extensive code evaluations were required to fit the complexities of the mixed use occupancies in an existing 4 story Type V building and to convert the building from non-rated to 1 hour. All building systems: lighting, heating, sprinklers, fire alarms, telecommunications, security and computer network were fully replaced.