Check the gallery to see what our creative participants came up with for the future of Sutro Baths! We thought it was wonderful that the amazing Western Neighborhoods Project posted this picture today as well. We would love to see a boardwalk or pier out to Fisherman’s Rock again!
Cove at Sutro Baths, showing Fishermans Rock and bridge to it, in the 1970s.
Photograph by Dennis O’Rorke.
The unfinished history of the plant-lab turned public park we call The Panhandle written up by FoundSF is a great primer on this familiar piece of the fabric of San Francisco. We love learning about what brought our landscapes to their current incarnations…and dreaming up new directions they might take. Check it out HERE. Join the conversation at our next Designing with Drinks at The Homestead, 19 Sept 2012
Cars driving through the Panhandle on their way to Golden Gate Park in 1931. Photo from the Greg Gaar Collection
Former roadway is now a series of grassy meadows…with some drainage issues. Photo by A.Swinehart
Hey all you January Contest participants and Ocean Beach lovers: the Ocean Beach Master Plan by SPUR has been released into the wild. There is a great update on Curbed here, and the entire write up of the plan is available here.
Good things are coming to the West Side, people.
Ocean Beach – 2011 – photo by A.Swinehart
A project that was featured in Landscape Architecture magazine back in December of 2010 caught 4CSF’s eye. The design work was done by JMD Design, and was completed in 2009. The City of Sydney’s renewal of Paddington Reservoir Gardens on Oxford Street won the prestigious 2009 Australian Award for Urban Design, from a field of 42 nominated projects. The Gardens sit over the State Heritage listed Paddington Reservoir. Designed by the City Engineer, Edward Bell, the Paddington Reservoir was built between 1866 and 1878 and was a key element in Sydney’s early water supply.¹
The magic of this space brought to mind some of our own beloved SF ruins…Sutro Baths, for example, is simply bursting with possibility (see our November contest). We also have an abandoned reservoir in our own city – Francisco Reservoir in Russian Hill. The fate of that land is currently under debate. Watch the clip below, and come to our next Designing with Drinks charette at CCA on July 19th and help get the ideas rolling for our town!
² Landscape Architecture by JMD Design, Australia
MAY’s contest is all about looking at the holes in the fabric of a place, a neighborhood, in San Francisco, and coming up with ways to stitch them back into the pattern of life around us.
This project in the Las Delicias district of Zaragoza, Spain, is a really interesting example of taking a neighborhood eyesore, an underutilized space, and transforming it into a resource and treasure for the people who live there. Check out the link, what the designers & developers did for Las Delicias, and turn your eye to San Francisco…and send in your ideas! You might win, and then we can work to start something real. E X C I T I N G!
Here is the ‘before’ picture of their ‘missing tooth’:
Prior to the intervention. The Las Delicias neighbourhood is affected by the physical deterioration of many of its buildings, some of which present a high risk of collapsing. Such was the case of the building located on the corner of calle de Caspe and calle de las Delicias, which had to be definitively demolished at the turn of the century. The resulting vacant lot left exposed the flank walls of the two adjacent buildings. © Sicilia y asociados © 2009
Here are a few of the ‘after’ pictures from the web article linked above.
PRETTY AWESOME!
Resembling the typological cast of High Line Park in New York, the Las Delicias garden confronts the problem of the blind flank walls that are such a blot on the landscape, resolving it by going beyond any purely decorative solution. © Sicilia y asociados © 2009
The garden is a metaphor for the tree where children swing to get away from the routine world of adults, offering the residents of a grey, featureless neighbourhood a haven that is both fun and educational, where botany classes are given and art installations are exhibited. © Sicilia y asociados © 2009
After the intervention, the 530 square metres of the block of land have been turned into a new public square with a metal structure over fifteen metres high which is the support of a hanging garden. © Sicilia y asociados © 2009
Our next DESIGNING WITH DRINKS will be held on
APRIL 25th | 6:30pm – 9:30pm | THE HOMESTEAD, 19th & Folsom
ADULT PLAYGROUND – DO YOUR PART TO KEEP SAN FRANCISCO FUN
The last one was so much fun, and so interesting, don’t miss out on our April Event! We’ll have more folks for you to talk to, have a beer with, and help collaborate and brainstorm on ways to make San Francisco more playful and full of surprises. That’s right, there’s no such thing as to much awesome in this town. Check out our April contest, and enter online or in person at Designing with Drinks. Looking for some co-conspirators? Find them over a delicious cocktail and basket of peanuts.
photo by Alycia Fleming
Exciting News! We’re throwing a party!
6:30- 9:30pm | WEDS, MARCH 28th | The Homestead Bar (Folsom & 19th St.)
We have partnered with SF Beautiful to host a monthly meet-up where you can do fab things like:
We have a Facebook event and page, BY THE WAY, so please like us, RSVP to the event, and come say hello!
The Beachside Cafe - scene of the action!
We had a wonderful meeting with our fabulous January Judge, Eve Batey of the SF Appeal, at the Beachside Cafe on 48th and Judah. Eve has lived in the Outer Sunset since 2004 and loves her ‘hood, and Ocean Beach. We cozied up to the bar right by the coffee station as all the tables were full. This turned out for the best, as we had the advantage of side commentary from Michael, the delightful barrista. Check back tomorrow for THE WINNER and commentary on all the other entries!
Michael the Magic Man
All you Ocean Beach lovers, sketch up your ideas, register, and submit TODAY for the January contest. You have until midnight tonight (or whenever we wake up tomorrow) to get those entries in. Our amazing January Judges are eagerly standing by! Don’t deny them your brilliance!
Portland has many of the same public sanitation issues we do here in San Francisco. Here’s a short video from shieldsfilms.com on just this topic.
Take a look, and let’s start thinking about the February contest!
People Can’t Wait from shieldsfilms.com on Vimeo.