Fall 2018, Arch 100C – High Performance City

The studio will take a city block in San Francisco’s Civic Center neighborhood as a site to pursue the architectural and urban possibilities of a center for artists to live, perform and study. Bound by Hayes, Van Ness, Fell and Franklin, the site is currently planned to house the relocation of the Ruth Asawa School for the Arts, a public high school focusing on performing and visual arts. Located in the heart of the city’s performing arts district, the architectural intervention required for the school raises the possibility of providing spaces badly needed by the city’s arts community—including practice rooms, performance spaces, and housing. The studio will emphasize the inherently urban characteristics of density, diversity, proximity, and reinvention to design a mixed-use arts complex for the site.

Students will develop a single project over the course of the semester. Following collective research, site visits and early design exercises, the class will divide into teams of three that will coordinate the development of the three main programmatic pieces of the project: the School for the Arts, a performing venue for a ballet company and a tower providing housing for artists. Each student can individually pursue their own piece of the project or can choose to combine programs and buildings with other members of the team. However, the process and evaluation of the work will emphasize the relationship between the pieces and the creation of a project that is greater than the sum of its parts.