We purchased an older, fixer upper on a hillside in Portola Valley with the hopes of rebuilding it into our dream home. We aimed to generate income by converting the former primary bedroom into a rentable, attached JADU. This mean building a new primary BR on the back, downhill side of the house, along with creating a new family room, and office. The front of the house was definitely old style, and did not, in any way, match our vision of a contemporary, hi-tech, look. I had interviewed other architects who had suggested we add a new front foyer, but I wasn't thrilled about the look presented, which was basically to add a gable roof addition ("A" frame shape add-on) at at the front, that would be harmonious with the rest of the house. In my first meeting with Davide, he suggested something that changed the whole dynamic of the house. He suggested that rather than be constrained by trying to harmonize the new entry with the old architecture, we could add a new layer to the front of the house, and change the look completely. This also creates a new corridor at the front that greatly improves the flow/circulation from the front to the back. It was a genius idea! This new layer at the front of the house gives us a spectacular new front entrance, plus a new corridor with tall ceilings. He also very skillfully raised the ceiling heights in many parts of the house so it feels like the rooms were expanded (when only the height changed). I am attaching a photo of the original house and Davide's concept for the new design. I want to add that we are not demolishing any part of the old house so we are not losing any existing square footage. We are just adding and "splicing the old with the new". For the new room additions at the back, he integrated the complex siting of the hillside PBR & family room to flow seamlessly into the same level of the existing house on. I have very strong ideas of what I want in terms of design, and Davide has been very patient in working through my ideas. He uses his critical eye and design experience to guide me so I don't get off track, and we can get to where it is I want to end up. We are now in the building permit process, and I can't wait for construction to start. I will be updating this post when the house is finished with more photos, because I want to show off the dramatic transformation between the "before" and "after". If you are looking for a miracle transformation, Davide Gianella is the architect who can make this dream come true for you! I can recommend him 100% read more

Acadia Architecture - New Design- Front Entrance - Architects Near Me - Los Gatos, California

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I reached out to Davide about two or three months ago to see if I could hire him to help design my remodel. He was really polite and so friendly and VERYYYY transparent that he was inundated with some work at the moment and that he gives his all to 1-2 projects at a time, so that they get the best out of him. He then gave me a suggested timeline, which unfortunately didn't match with what we had in mind - but no worries! I enjoyed the interaction and his work is beautiful, and I truly appreciate the communication and friendliness that transpired in our conversations. read more

This is my first renovation project I managed myself. Due to today's ever changing building codes. It was so frustrating that my project have triggered so many required upgrades. I was fortunate to find Davide at Acadia Architecture. He is so knowledgeable with today's building codes and requirements. He walked me through the whole process and gave me referrals such as T-24, engineer etc. His designs was so awesome that many of my friends who have been here before thought I have added many square footage. His design made the spaces a lot more airy and usable. Can't say enough good things about him. read more

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Over and over Davide exceeded expectations. He has a sophisticated eye. He listens, communicates clearly, and has great ideas. He adapts easily to different aesthetic preferences. He is a pleasure to work with. David is also really good at the nitty gritty, of which there is a lot when you're building (e.g., permits, redesigns, and inspections). He worked well with our builder and found creative and effective solutions to problems that came up along the way. Above all, he guided the project from start to finish in a way that made it obvious that he cared about the final product. In short: hire him! You won't be disappointed. read more

Davide worked with us on both an addition to our home as well as a kitchen and living room renovation and my husband an I have no hesitancy in recommending him. read more

While he was working on our dream house, we learned that Davide's goal is to build human spaces that are in harmony with nature and the surrounding environments. He appreciates order and constructive chaos, practicality and impossibility, and habitats that allow people to express themselves in any given circumstance. Davide was committed to meet our needs. He was precise and quick to respond to our questions and concerns. He proposed unconventional solutions and ideas that suggested new ways of "living". Davide worked with a social-psychological mindset that was tuned in to our sociocultural needs. He is a humble man who is not afraid to disagree constructively with his clients. Thanks for your work, Davide. Monica read more

We are in the process of building a new home in the hills above Saratoga. When looking for an architect we were seeking someone with a clean, modern aesthetic who was open to working collaboratively with us to align on a design. Davide fit the bill. He was very open throughout the design process working with us on our project that had a few twists (hilly site location and SIP construction). We would gladly recommend Davide and chose to work with him on future projects. read more

My husband and I wanted to create a minimalist design for our warehouse in Campbell and Davide captured our vision perfectly. Although the process was long with the city, Davide stuck with every change and hurdle presented to him between us and the city. We're so happy with our new plant shop in Campbell! read more

Davide was our architect for the rather-big remodelling project on the house. We never worked with architects before and I found him on yelp, not by personal referral so we were a little nervous at the beginning. We hired him after interviewing several architects as he sounded most knowledgable, trustworthy, artistic and honest. And he didn't disappoint us during the actual work! The project was longer and more complicated than initially expected and I can't say we were the best communicating clients about the details, but he has been always patient and reasonable. Also he was persistent on the details when no one else could expect what the different outcome would be if we skip or change something on the original plan and he turned out to be right on most of things and I am glad that we listened to him! We are pleased with the final outcome of the house. I would highly recommend him. read more

I would recommend Davide to everyone that need to build your dream home! His design is phenomenal and his professional advices throughout the building process helping us to move forward on constructions. We had to change general contractor in a middle of the project but to have Davide answering all our building questions directly to us as a home owner helping us to move things forward confidently. read more

Davide at Arcadia Architecture is an amazing Architect. We had his help with our PUD Project in Mountain View and he gave us many great tips. Altough Arcadia is not a large firm, but their professionalism goes way beyond expectations of many. We were quite satisfied with the service. read more

Love the experience! Great architect Davide Gianella who with his artistic, elegant and sophisticated touch will make your imagination come true. We are currently on finishing stages of our new abode, and already people stop by to admire. I was never afraid to suggest something that other architect would probably scare, but with Davide each suggestion was reviewed carefully, analyzed and either a suggestion put forth to better the idea or a little twist would make everything fall into place! Definitely recommend and will make sure to work with Davide on any project I, my family members or my friends will need architect for!!!! read more

Definitely one of the most brilliant and knowledgeable Architects I have had the privilege of working with. Not only is he a ware of building codes, he brings with him a love for architecture that really shows in his design work. He is one of the most patient architects I have ever met, and listens to your every need while working within your budget. read more

I have collaborated with Davide on several project over the last four years (he hired me as a photographer). I saw him consistently delivering to his clients beautiful, modern, thoughtful and functional designs. I have always enjoyed working with him personally and frequently heard good things spoken about him by his clients and other industry professionals. Commonly recurring praises are about how kind, professional and reliable he is. Design and build of a home can be very emotional and often stressful time given the amount of decisions needed to be made, the codes to comply with and contractors to deal with. Davide is a person that will help you navigate all of the above and guide you through the process while designing truly beautiful home. I could not recommend him highly enough. read more

Davide has architected an amazing home for my property in Boulder Creek. I had previously worked with 4 other designers who could not come up with a suitable house plan for the challenging site - 1/2 an acre with a very steep slope and little useable land. He practically read my mind and came up with a home that is exactly what I wanted. Everyone who has seen the plans has commented on how beautiful and unique the home is. He has also been very patient working with the county planners to address their comments and meet the code requirements. I highly recommend Davide - he is fantastic! AND now I have approved plans to build my dream home, thanks to Davide. read more

Great designs, best architect on the South Bay, conveniently located at the town of Los Gatos.

Davide Giannella is one of a kind. He has a very strong sense of style, current trends, technology, and modern materials. I admire his professionalism, strong work ethic, tons of knowledge and years of experience working with officials in the local area. The story of my discovery of Davide is rather interesting. There is a house on the street where my work office is and I fell in love with this house even before I thought I would need an architect. Then we bought a fixer upper and I was looking for an architect. I was going through Yelp and saw pictures of houses that I could not stop looking at. They were projects of Davide Giannella. I contacted him and now he is an architect of our dream house in Campbell. And then I learned that he is the architect of the house on our street which I fell in love with... That felt almost mystical how a chain of random events brought me to work with Davide. Davide's way of seeing things is unique and kind of poetic. When he is designing a space, then it is not only about the walls and the floor plans, it is more about the connections between the spaces inside and out, about the light and the air, about the feeling of people who is going to live in the house and who would come to visit. What would they see when they come in? How each area of the house fits the personality and the needs of a person who would use it the most? What would it feel like in the morning and how it would look like in the afternoon? Most importantly, he is easy to talk to. He would never dismiss my ideas no matter how stupid they might be. He will work with me until there is a practical solution that meets my requirements while does not compromise his creative vision of an artist. Bravo Davide! read more

We decided to rebuild our house to what would be our dream home. We chose to work with Acadia Architecture/Davide Giannella based on the style of Davide's previous designs. In the end, we were very disappointed with his quality and professionalism. For any homeowner considering Acadia Architecture, this gives you some perspectives to consider. With regard to quality, there were various mistakes in the design that were found as the house was being built. Resolving those mistakes resulted in significant time and cost overruns that we had to bear. Some of the mistakes are: 1. Pitch of upper roof was specified incorrectly. At that pitch, windows would not fit. Correcting the roof pitch cascaded to roof ridge changes and window framing changes. Revised architectural and structural plans needed to be provided to the city in order to pass inspection. At this critical juncture, we had a hard time getting the architect and structural engineer (4X Engineering) to work together on-site to find a solution. 2. Structural design around the fireplace does not fit the fireplace dimensions that the architect specified. Architect suggested re-doing part of the foundation, framing, and gas line to fix the design mistake. Of course, all that is impractical and too costly for us to bear. 3. Master shower window was located on a shear wall. The architect modified it on the architectural design but did not update the structural engineer. Because of outdated plans, we failed an inspection and incurred delays. 4. When we asked Davide whether we could shorten a kitchen wall to accommodate a different cabinet layout, he said yes. When in fact the wall was a structural wall with foundation tie-downs along its entire length. Davide did not check structural drawings before advising which resulted in our revamping the design several times. There were other various items that we asked the builder to rebuild. Based on these, we got the feeling that Davide had limited consideration for interior functionality and was more concerned with exterior look. Various window locations do not make usability sense for occupants. Layout of laundry room did not allow enough room to extract the washer/dryer. HVAC routing was not considered in the architect plan; we worked out the routing in real-time with the builder and ended up sacrificing space that we intended to use. We did not like the color palettes proposed by Davide, but he did not propose alternatives based on our stated preferences. As a result, we took on ourselves the tasks of comparing roof colors, mixing stucco colors, staining samples ourselves, etc. This is a repeated theme - Davide largely follows his own preferences. When we want something different, we need to be very hands-on to figure out the design ourselves. Aside from the design mistakes, we were also disappointed with the lack of ownership and follow-through when problems happen. Problems are expected to happen, but we do expect full support from our architect to work as a team to find practical resolutions promptly. That was not the case. As homeowners we had lots of trouble in getting the architect and structural engineer (4X Engineering, referred by Davide) to work that way. They were reluctant to come on-site or even have calls together in a timely fashion. That caused more delays, cost overruns, and additional stress throughout the build and inspection process. We explicitly asked Davide not to take and share any photos of our home. He did so anyways. We are disappointed with this basic lack of respect. Some of the photos posted publicly by the architect are actually owned by us and copied by Davide from the builder's website without permission. In conclusion, the architect's mistakes have cost us much time, money, and heartache. We are more than happy to give credit where it's due (and we've been truly happy with quite a few subs we worked with), but unfortunately with the architect that's not the case. In hindsight, had we known what we know now about the level of quality and professionalism, we absolutely would not have chosen to work with Davide Giannella or recommend him to anyone. read more

Working with Davide from Acadia was my first experience with and architect, and it was a fantastic one. He produced the concepts, floor plans, and detailed drawing set for a major remodel that demolished everything but parts of the old foundation. He proposed several very unique design ideas for the house that will make it look very unique and take maximum advantage of the space we had available. My house is going to be very modern and has already generated lots of praise from passing neighbors. I would highly recommend Davide if you want a very meticulous architect for your new house or remodel. read more

Davide, is a talented Architect from Italy. I hired Acadia-Architecture for numerous projects and they have great ideas, listen to your own ideas, and work with your budget and time schedule. I highly recommend their services. read more

Working with Davide has been a great pleasure. He listened to my needs & ideas and turned around and designed a beautiful home. He is very professional, has quick response time and very talented and creative Architect. I look forward to working with Davide in future projects. read more

We just finished a large remodel + new addition project in Palo Alto. Davide, the owner of Acadia Architecture, designed our place. We were very satisfied with his design and his exceptional commitment. After he got his money (when we got our building permit a few months ago), he did not run! Instead he came back a few times to check on the building progress, gave us suggestions when we sought his help, helped brainstorming solution when we got issues with the contractor. Davide blended great architectural knowledge with his Italian taste and came up with practical design that met not just our requirement but our need (beyond what we asked for). Everyone who has been to our place complimented the design. Last but not least, we built a very green building with a 88 green point. We will definitely hire him again in a heart beat! read more

We strongly believe that a passionate and mistake-free architect is an integral part of any construction project. Davide is the perfect architect for a modern home, as he will put in as much love into your project as you do. Our project is a new construction with significant living space. I am blessed to have such a wonderful architect who puts our dreams onto paper. He is totally committed, meticulous and helps with interior design. He made our project stress-free and took care of the whole site approval process, coordinating with other engineers during approval stage. We can't imagine how it would have been without him. He takes pride to his work and goes an extra mile to resolve any issues. I appreciate his dedication towards the project as I can reach out to him for any issues during construction even after his design contract is over. read more

We know Davide for nearly 3 years since our house burned in Campbell. Davide - just outstanding Architect with knowledge, experience and most important honesty, responsibility and human touch. Davide designed our house as it still under construction in Campbell. He's always helping us to resolve any construction issues and willing to go extra mile to solve any problems. I highly recommend Davide at Acadia_Architecture for anyone who's looking for any architectural projects. read more

Davide is the architect for our new home. He's worked with us the past year and a half, first to design + plan and now to help review and monitor the construction while the home is being built. We went through many rounds of design discussions, revisions and even scope changes. Throughout the process he has been a person of exceptional integrity, character and poise. He is very prompt at getting back to us whenever we have questions or need clarifications. He has a great design vision but has kept the design true to the style and details we wanted to have in our home. He has been a pleasure to work with and we feel lucky to have him as our architect. We will be glad to act as a reference, so please feel free to ask Davide for our contact information. read more

Davide is artistic! We are extremely fortunate to find him to design our home. It turned out to be what exactly we envisioned. He worked with us at every step, listened to us, I repeat - listened to us, to learn what we wanted and came up with a beautiful design. He was always there throughout the construction pitching in advise and help when needed. When City wanted some changes in the drawings, he neither wasted anytime nor demanded exorbitant change order fees. Davide is a true professional and passionate about natural light and it is an integral part of his design. We have abundant light now and it feels so much better to stray indoors now. We will not hesitate a single moment to hire him again if we need. read more

For the past seven years, we've had the pleasure to build with several of Davide's designs. Davide's drawings are always very meticulous. There is never any details overlooked. In addition to being thorough, he is also very supportive of the projects. Any questions or issues that arises, Davide always devote his utmost attention and effort to address them expeditiously. He is among some of the best architects that we've worked with. read more

We are so, so pleased with the job Davide did with our addition. We are having a family room built onto the back of our house, and thought we had a pretty good idea of what we wanted before we started interviewing architects. We interviewed a few, but Davide clearly stood out. We were instantly extremely comfortable with him personally, and he took our ideas about what we wanted and just improved upon all of them! He had some really wonderful ideas, and as a result the room we are getting is just perfect. My husband and I still laugh, thinking of what our family room might have looked like if we hadn't hired Davide. He absolutely kept in mind what we wanted (it was very important to us that the addition look like it was original to our 1942 house), but made it so much more elegant than we were expecting. The result is just fabulous, and really elevates the quality of our whole home. If we ever have need of an architect again, Davide will be the only one we call! read more

Davide is the architect of our house under construction. It's amazing to see how our dream is finally becoming a reality. Davide has a very big part in making it happen. We contacted Davide about a year and half back to help design our home project. Davide listened to our ideas and goals and quickly came up with a rough sketch of his vision. Hiring him was a no brainer and am glad we did! Since then, we have worked with Davide very closely through various phases of the home design and project implementation process; ranging from layout design, city permits , finishing details , contractor selection and now the construction follow up. Davide is very responsive, patient, calm and comes up with creative ideas to ensure that the home's design works for us. Our house is presently under construction and Davide is making sure that the construction is going smoothly and per plans. He even responded to our queries while on vacation. Thanks Davide for the beautiful design and it's a pleasure to work with you! read more

We started working with Davide of Acadia Architecture to design our new house around Dec 2009. He listened to our requirements very carefully, then worked with the county on possible implementations and delivered a design that accommodated all our needs. He is a creative architect, who is open to new ideas and comes up with solution to issues. He has a can do attitude and works well with clients, supporting engineers, contractors, as well as city or county folks. We changed our design at least twice while going through the permit process and he pleasantly accommodated us through each change. We got our plans approved with only one round of comments from Santa Clara County office. Davide is a person of high integrity, level headed, efficient, and simply a great person to work with. Everyone of our friends that we have recommended Davide to has hired him. It has been a pleasure working with Davide and we highly recommend him and Acadia Architecture. read more