"How can we design spaces that support this neighborhood?"
This question was central to our various investigations around the Dogpatch Neighborhood of San Francisco. Part of the movement towards improving the Dogpatch District was by utilizing the Green Benefit Districts financing mechanism, which allows property owners to tax themselves in order to fund capital improvement projects within the neighborhood. Project funding was primarily designed to re-utilize spaces once used in the industrial past of the Dogpatch into one that celebrates and supports new and future uses of the neighborhood.
Groundworks was tasked to design three different public spaces for the district: The Minnesota Street Greenway & Plaza; a former MTA yard inspired into a Butterfly-themed playscape; and a community flex-space set on top of the Caltrain tunnel now referred to as Tunnel Top Park.
Woods Yard Playground
This playscape project was led by the SF Parks Alliance and the SF Municipal Transportation Agency. The design references the intense patterning of the Checkerspot Butterfly, with a high contrast rubberized paving pattern for the playground surface. Wood lounge benches have been added to provide a pleasant perch for visitors to the park. While a drought tolerant native butterfly attractor replaced an existing lawn. This playground was designed for both people as a space for this vital species.
Minnesota Street Park
Adjacent to the Minnesota Street Art Gallery, is an underutilized parking lot and corner plaza that is long overdue for a makeover.
Groundworks Office worked in collaboration with the Green Benefit District, on behalf of the client. The approach was to activate this corner by expanding the planting areas, closing a throughfare street to cars in order to create a flexible yet, safe urban arts plaza that could be used for community gatherings and special gallery events.
Tunnel Top Park
Tunnel Top Park was driven by neighborhood activists in search of a community space that supports and celebrates the local ecology and the rich diversity of the neighborhood. Pollinator gardens, custom concrete and wood benches, and a large scale graphic patterning reveals the underground tracks below. Friends of the Tunnel Top Park now inhabit and maintain the park to suit their own communities needs.