TOURS
IMAGE CREDIT: DIRK WYSE PHOTOGRAPHY
NOTE: All online ticket sales end two hours prior to the start of program unless otherwise specified.
Friday, September 13, 3:00 – 5:00 PM
Five88 Workforce Housing in Mission Bay
Meeting point provided upon confirmation of online registration
AIA Member: $15 | General: $25
This building is the largest new 100% affordable development to open in San Francisco in a decade. Located in the rapidly developing Mission Bay area adjacent to the new UCSF Medical Center, the building provides 200 affordable, mixed-use transit-oriented new homes for low-income families, plus 10,000-sf of neighborhood-serving retail space. A gateway to a new neighborhood, the main corner is a dramatic form clad with custom-perforated weathering steel and visually supported by a row of “dancing columns” — tilting textured-concrete columns that make for a lighthearted and dynamic street edge. The façade also anticipates the future park across the street, on a site temporarily activated by a mini-golf course. Residential stoops connect directly to sidewalks and will be well situated for this coming park, and a new pedestrian passage breaks up the large block and connects the park to Mission Bay Boulevard North.
IMAGES BY MARIKO REED
San Francisco Living: Home Tours
Saturday, September 21
Home Tours Headquarters: Room & Board, 685 Seventh Street
10:00 AM – 4:00 PM (Last Entry to homes at 3:45 PM)
9:00 AM - 2:00 PM: Onsite ticket sales + ticket pick-up at Home Tours Headquarters; light breakfast/refreshments will be available for only paid attendees.
AIA San Francisco and the Center for Architecture + Design present the annual San Francisco Living: Home Tours, an open house event, featuring five outstanding modern homes. This popular program showcases a variety of architectural styles, neighborhoods, and residences including single-family homes and contemporary renovations. This is the first Bay Area tour series to promote residential design from the architect’s point of view.
Tuesday, September 24, 3:00 – 5:00 PM
Mission Creek Senior Community
Meeting point provided upon confirmation of online registration
AIA Member: $15 | General: $25
This mixed-use development is located in the evolving Mission Bay neighborhood of San Francisco. On the site of a former rail yard, the project provides dignified housing for extremely low income seniors, the civic functions of a branch public library and public meeting spaces, street-level retail, and rooftop gardens. Between the project’s exterior color palette, its elegant massing, its commitment to sustainability, and its humane civic-mindedness, the development makes an extraordinary contribution to the quality of urban life in San Francisco.
The Day Health Center offers meals, medical care, and social activities. In addition, an Assisted Living level of care is provided by combining day care with independent apartments. Large roof gardens create protected exterior space for the residents. The apartments have open plans to meet mobility needs; living and sleeping rooms are separated by translucent sliding screens – rather than doors – for privacy with natural light. The combination of its mixed-use components create a vibrant community that has a positive impact on the lives of both the residents and community at large. This project has been nationally recognized and has won several design awards including the John M. Clancy Award for Socially Responsible Housing.
IMAGE: BY ALAN KARCHMER
NOTE: All online ticket sales end two hours prior to the start of program unless otherwise specified.
Thursday, September 5, 4:00 – 6:00 PM
From Vacant Lot to Heart of the Neighborhood
EVENT CANCELLED
Venture to the Outer Sunset neighborhood to explore Playland at 43rd Avenue, a unique, multi-use space that has been transformed from an underutilized lot into a thriving community space.
This tour will trace the story of the project — designed and implemented by the San Francisco Planning Department’s Groundplay Program in collaboration with the local community — from its inception in 2015 to today. By illustrating the anatomy of a tactical urbanism project in San Francisco, the tour will allow community leaders, residents, designers, and architects to find a useful, technical blueprint on how to transform a vacant lot in the neighborhood into a successful community resource.
This site, at the heart of the Outer Sunset neighborhood, was an empty asphalt lot of approximately 1.25 acres on San Francisco Unified School District (SFUSD) property for many years. After under going a community design process facilitated by the San Francisco Planning Department, the new space — named Playland at 43rd Avenue in homage to the iconic Playland at the Beach of the past — is today a multi-use, inter-generational public space. It includes a community garden with raised beds a central pavilion that lends itself to gatherings of families and friends, a small skate area designed by the skating community, a recycled shipping container used as an artist studio (a place to host an artist-in-residence program with exhibition space and free community classes), a basketball court, and plenty of flexible, open space for kids to ride bikes, scoot, run, and build forts with salvaged materials found on site.
Tuesday, September 10, 3:00 – 5:00 PM
Nolli Walking Tour
Starting point will be emailed to paid registrants at least one week prior to day of event
AIA Member: $15 | General: $25
For more than 5 years, the Nolli walking tour has become one of the festival’s popular walking tours as it honors the spirit of Giambattista Nolli's innovative 1748 map as it applies to San Francisco. Led by David Alpert, CEO of Geopogo, David is a native San Francisco architect / tech entrepreneur and an architectural historian, providing a lively and informative perspective on how the City has transformed and what the future holds. We will move quickly through a wide variety of public and semi-public spaces. At the end of the tour, we will enjoy our traditional no-host Nolli happy hour at a local spot with tour participants who wish to continue the adventure. Tour co-leader, Hannah Simonson, Cultural Resources Planner, Page & Turnbull, will provide historic information about the sites along the tour.
Wednesday, September 11, 3:00 – 5:00 PM
Diversified Spaces: A POPOS Walking Tour
AIA/ASLA Member: $15 | General: $25
In 1985, San Francisco implemented a Downtown Plan that required new developments to create quality, POPOS (privately-owned public open spaces) at a ratio of 1 square foot of open space to 50 square feet of occupied office space. Today, downtown San Francisco is home to over 70 POPOS, and traditional ideas of urban open space have broadened to include small-scale plazas, parks, gardens, sun terraces, and atriums that serve the public under private ownership.
Join AIASF COTE for a walking conversation with planners, architects, and landscape architects to discuss the history, design, and lasting impact of a selection of POPOS in downtown San Francisco, including 525 Market Street, 555 Mission Street, and 101 Second Street. Tour speakers will include Joshua Switzky, the Acting Director of the Citywide Planning Division of the San Francisco Planning Department; Stephen Sobel, Design Director, SOM and Architect of 101 Second Street; and Alan Lewis, Design Director and Open Space Practice Leader within SOM’s City Design Practice. This tour is co-hosted by ASLA-NCC.
Thursday, September 12, 3:00 – 5:00 PM
Structural Legacy Tour of the Financial District
Meeting point will be sent via email to all paid registrants at least one week prior to day of event
AIA/SEAONC Member: $15 | General: $25
This tour will focus on the buildings of structural engineering significance around the SF Financial District. The tour will be lead in partnership with the SEAONC Hensolt Legacy Committee, aiming to preserve the history of structural engineering in the Bay Area. Locations that will be on the tour Hallidie Building, One Bush Plaza, 130 Bush, Mills Building, Transamerica Building. Tour will be led by Nicole O’Hearne, Project Engineer, Holmes Structures.
HALLIDIE BUILDING / SAN FRANCISCO PUBLIC LIBRARY ARCHIVES
IMAGES BY JASPER SANIDAD
DATE/TIME CHANGE: Wednesday, September 18, 3:30 - 5:30 PM
(formerly Tuesday, September 17, 4:00 – 6:00 PM)
Ohana Floors Tour: Salesforce East and Salesforce Tower
Meeting point will be sent via email to all paid registrants at least one week prior to day of event
AIA Member: $15 | General: $25
The top floor of the Salesforce Tower and Salesforce East, designed by Mark Cavagnero Associates, is the Ohana Floor that offer the buildings’ most stunning views. In Hawaiian, “Ohana” means family but represents the concept of people bound together by compassion and support of one another. Salesforce recognized a need for employees, customers and local non-profit community members to be able to convene, celebrate and share within these spaces that have become San Francisco’s best living room and observatory space of our city’s ever-changing skyline.
Brandon Joo, Principal at Mark Cavagnero Associates, will lead the tour beginning in the 30th Floor of Salesforce East, culminating in the 61st floor of Salesforce Tower.
DATE/TIME CHANGE: Wednesday, September 18, 12 - 2:00 PM
(formerly Friday, September 20)
Dispensary Design Tour: High Design for Cannabis
The Apothecarium // Meeting point will be sent via email to all paid registrants at least one week prior to day of event
AIA Member: $15 | General: $25 (21+ only event)
This design tour will visit a San Francisco-based dispensary which demonstrates thoughtful design as well as creative compliance with myriad special requirements of local and state regulations. Some have been legally operating for many years, previously open to medical patients only, now open to all 21+ public. Others opened more recently, since the legalization of adult use (recreational). We'll view a dispensary through the lens of architecture and interior design, and see the power design has had in de-stigmatizing products and spaces that were long considered off-limits for much of society.
DATE CHANGE: Friday, September 20, 3:00 - 5:00 PM
(formerly Tuesday, September 17)
San Francisco Living Wall Walking Tour
Meeting point will be sent via email to all paid registrants at least one week prior to day of event
AIA Member: $15 | General: $25
As city populations are becoming increasingly dense, living walls serve a critical function for incorporating sustainable greenery and biophilic design in Urban Architecture. Habitat Horticulture presents a “Living Wall Walking Tour” led by Founding Principal and Leading Designer, David Brenner.
Participants will tour three of Habitat Horticulture’s landmark public space applications in downtown San Francisco; SFMOMA, which hosts the largest living wall in the country, Foundry Square III (1st and Howard), and lastly on the top floor of the Salesforce Tower to examine the 24 living columns and breathtaking view. David will discuss the implications for integrating living wall structures in architectural design, including site evaluation, processes, challenges, installation technicalities, and maintaining living systems. David will also discuss what considerations should be taken into account when designing and specifying a living wall.
At SFMOMA, we will guide a discussion on the design intent of Snøhetta who led the museum’s redesign, and the unique features of this living wall as an extension of that intent. We’ll also dive into technicalities of maintenance including the unique recirculating system (Engineered by Hyphae Design Lab) which uses condensate and stormwater to irrigate. From the SFMOMA, we will head to the lobby within Foundry Square III (1st and Howard), which is public open space. This building was developed by Tishman Speyer and designed by STUDIOS Architects. We will discuss how this interior installation differs from the SFMOMA exterior installation.
LIVING COLUMN AT SALESFORCE TOWER / GARRY BELINSKY
LIVING WALL AT SFMOMA / GARRY BELINSKY
Lastly, the group will walk another two blocks to the Salesforce Tower and head up to the top floor to view the 24 living columns and the breathtaking view. We will discuss the process in designing the living columns around the structural columns, recessing the drain into the raised floor and creating a soffit to give the impression as if the columns continued up through the ceiling and down through floor below.