Landscape inspiration for the Wild Pearl, Piet Oudolf’s garden within a garden at Peter Zumthor’s Serpentine Gallery Pavilion.

Chroma collaborators are industry-leading creative visionaries, prolific polymaths—and amazing humans. Meet the design innovators who helped make the Wild Pearl an edgy, sacred space for creativity and community.

To achieve the euphoric creative aura of the Wild Pearl, Alexis and Ian partnered with architect John Toya and landscape architect Erica Timbrell in an immersive, intentional design process. 

“What’s most compelling about working with both John and Erica is their creativity,” says Alexis. “They are both super creative, artistic dreamers. We’re kindred spirits. They don’t rush the process, so we take our time and explore—not just how to get things exactly right but how to push the boundaries. I rely on the unusual references and fascinating perspectives they bring to the collaboration.”

John Toya

Architect and founder of TOYA Studio

John Toya has a deep passion for how things are made. With more than two decades of experience as an architect, he has refined a thoughtful and collaborative approach to design that combines defining ideas and forms of past and present with regional building traditions and materials. Toya grew up touring project sites and historic structures with his architect father and credits his mother with inspiring his admiration for artists and makers, and instilling in him a determination to make his own mark on the world. After honing his craft as partner at the award-winning firm Ike Kligerman Barkley, he founded TOYA Studio in 2015 and has since earned renown for contemporary homes that suit the needs and lifestyles of his clients while reflecting the local community and environment.

Visit the TOYA Studio website

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John Toya stands in TOYA studio's home in the Dogpatch neighborhood of San Francisco.
John Toya stands in TOYA Studio’s home in the Dogpatch neighborhood of San Francisco.
Cabin sketch
“Creating connection between the structures and the landscape, while providing light and access to the lower level of the rear cabin and preserving the magnolia, a wide ‘bridge’ over the sloped land will join the two cabins with outdoor living space.”
The front cabin will be restored in its original state and opened in the rear to the outdoor space. It will be clad in salvaged redwood and left raw to emphasize its original cladding. The rear cabin gains two stories of living space and will also be clad in redwood. An elliptical stair tower is admittedly a nod to Sea Ranch houses and structures of the late 1970s.”
“The front cabin will be restored in its original state and opened in the rear to the outdoor space. It will be clad in salvaged redwood and left raw to emphasize its original cladding. The rear cabin gains two stories of living space and will also be clad in redwood. An elliptical stair tower is admittedly a nod to Sea Ranch houses and structures of the late 1970s.”

Erica Timbrell

Landscape architect and founder of Erica Timbrell Design

Erica Timbrell’s admiration for the landscape developed as a child growing up near the Florida Everglades and expanded during post-adolescent years spent in the Colorado Rockies and the Idaho Sawtooth Range, where lasting impressions took hold. In 2016, after working for her West Coast mentors Elizabeth Everdell and Scott Lewis, she founded Erica Timbrell Design, a landscape design studio based in San Francisco. Through an engaging and interpersonal design process, she translates her clients’ goals and aesthetics into visionary outdoor spaces that focus on the beauty and joy to be found in nature.

Visit the Erica Timbrell Design website

Follow Erica Timbrell Design on Instagram

Image of Erica Timbrell
“It was fun to play with a minimal and refined plant palette. Collaborating with Chroma flows easily because our shared tastes unite the vision.”
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