Fall 2018, Arch 203 – A New, New Family Center for CCSF

It’s a common story now, that the rising cost of living in San Francisco is putting tremendous pressure on young families. Many faculty and students at City College of San Francisco, for instance, certainly feel the squeeze, as estimated child care costs within the city approach $30,000/year/child, making the proposition of higher education less feasible than ever. There was a time, however, when a bold vision from a wealthy donor proposed a solution for CCSF’s child care problem. The Orfalea family pledged $8.5 million (a lot of money at the time!) towards a new Family Center at the northern corner of campus, which would house a childcare center (free for low-income families) and instructional facilities for Child Development program. Better still, it was determined that cutting-edge, futuristic architecture—deployed through advanced systems of prefabrication—would be necessary to fully realize this utopian vision of community support.

In this studio, we will approach this Family Center anew, addressing this still very real community need, but designing towards an intermediate future, in which change (wear, weather, growth, decay, technology) is anticipated and embraced, and the realization of the building design is just the beginning of the architecture.