DISSOLVED EDGE
MACRO
DEC 2018
Instructor: Rene Davids
Situated along the water’s edge, Pier 70 in San Francisco straddles a boundary that demarcates the separation between land and water. A spatial threshold undergoing constant re-development, Protrero Hill is currently being
re-contextualized from an abandoned industrialized zone into a new urban center.
While the revitalization is needed, commercially driven urban development often negates historical context for expedited construction and prime real estates. This proposal seeks to examine urbanization in the context of urban zoning. Historically tied to racial and class segregation, San Francisco’s redlining in the 1930s has prompted planning discussions of gentrification, climate change, and homelessness today. Where the process of urban zoning has segregated the landscape through an index of typologies, this project asks, what happens when urban planning question the boundaries of zoning previously created?
Beginning as an infill to the existing residential block, a series of overlapping program engender negotiations between commercial, residential, and public space as program grows individually and together simultaneously.
While the revitalization is needed, commercially driven urban development often negates historical context for expedited construction and prime real estates. This proposal seeks to examine urbanization in the context of urban zoning. Historically tied to racial and class segregation, San Francisco’s redlining in the 1930s has prompted planning discussions of gentrification, climate change, and homelessness today. Where the process of urban zoning has segregated the landscape through an index of typologies, this project asks, what happens when urban planning question the boundaries of zoning previously created?
Beginning as an infill to the existing residential block, a series of overlapping program engender negotiations between commercial, residential, and public space as program grows individually and together simultaneously.
