The Sunset Parklet by INTERSTICE Architects was recently awarded Special Recognition in Urban Design from San Francisco’s AIA Design Awards Program. Designed as a pro-bono project for the Other Avenues Whole Food Co-op Market and the popular Sea Breeze Café in San Francisco’s Outer Sunset district, Sunset Parklet is a new public amenity that stretches 50 feet on the Judah light-rail transit line.
Image © Cesar Rubio Photography
INTERSTICE took San Francisco’s unique typography as a source of inspiration in creating the sculptural parklet. Despite a deceptively regular street grid, San Francisco’s topography is famous for its undulations (like waves or sand dunes). Four streets cut from different parts of the city’s fabric would hardly matchup when placed next to one another. They would create juxtapositions along their sectional edges, and this became the operational device for how the Parklet would be articulated.
Image © Cesar Rubio Photography
The 50 foot long site was conceptually divided into 4 equal 18″ undulating parallel strips. Each of the four strips undulate and double back upon themselves becoming seats, lounge chairs, tables, benches, planters, and accessible areas of ground and circulation along the entire length of the Parklet. The elegant solution even offers a bicycle area.
Image © INTERSTICE Architects
Constructed of sustainable and reclaimed materials in Compliance with DPW’s Guidelines, this new addition to the popular and growing SF Parklet program challenges the notion of a ‘café Patio’ – to produce an elegantly articulated work of sculptural mass that galvanized the greater community around both its political support, and its funding over a gruelling two year process to become point of local pride.
Image © INTERSTICE Architects
Image © INTERSTICE Architects
Image © Cesar Rubio Photography
Image © Cesar Rubio Photography
Image © Cesar Rubio Photography
Image © INTERSTICE Architects
Image © Cesar Rubio Photography
Image © Cesar Rubio Photography
Image © Cesar Rubio Photography
Facts:
Project: Sunset Parklet
Location: Judah Street, Sunset District, San Francisco, CA
Year: Completed 2014
Architect: INTERSTICE Architects
Contractor: Mark Vann
Photographer: Cesar Rubio
*All images and information courtesy of v2com.
