San Francisco Field Trip
California Architecture, Lauren Bricker
LOCATION & DATE
2018/09/15~09/18
9/15 -SF Downtown Tour
9/16 -W. Haven's House/ Greenwood Common/ First Church of Christ Scientist/ UC Berkerley
9/17 -Chinatown/ Pier 70, Union Iron Works/ Lundberg Design Studio/
9/18 -Salesforce Tower, Transit Center & Park/ Hannah House
SF DOWNTOWN TOUR
California Architecture, Lauren Bricker
Downtown SF
This is my second visit to San Francisco. I was here during summer vacation on 2017 with my family.
First thing that caught my eye at downtown SF was its grand buildings with fancy delicate patterns at the entrance.
Second thing was to my surprise, how the homeless wander around the streets during day time along a man in three piece suit at once. Downtown SF is like a big pot where all walks of people gather in a specific time and suddenly disappear when the clock strikes four. It’s a real experience upon what we mentioned during class time: that California is a state connected by freeways. Freeways are like the veins, transmitting blood cells to their location at different period of times. This reminds me of the different living model of the East and the West, which will be further demonstrated at China Town’s chapter.
ISAIA
The Maidens Street is an escape of the urban paste in downtown San Francisco, with a sense of Italian vibe containing masonry architectures and luxurious clothing brands. Apart from all the others, ISAIA has its front facade covered with lovely continuous brownish orange brick patterns, leaving only a tunnel-like depth hole as entrance.
Unlike its heavy and patterned appearance, the interior was designed to be light, elegant and simplicity.
“This is the only project Frank Gehry has in San Francisco” the manager of ISAIA said.
We are here for it’s famous staircase, a smaller version of practice for the Guggenheim Museum. Funny though, my favorite moment of the project is the front gate instead of the stair. I love how the front gate corresponds to the curving shape of the spinning staircase which reminds me of a seashell: brownish patterns on the outside and a soft white texture on the inside. In my opinion, it’s this great combo that made the project successful. On the other hand, it’s worth digging into while comparing it with the Guggenheim Museum which applies a very different skin system to the similar staircase. The two projects create its own universe based on the same element.
BERKERLEY
W. Haven's House/ Greenwood Common/ First Church of Christ Scientist/ UC Berkerley
W. Haven's House
What I’ve learned the most from the Haven’s House is supposingly how the structure interacts within the design and programming itself. Notice the large diagonal trusses that cuts through the house creating large ceilings at the first floor, and how the interior acts with it. Allowing bedding areas with tall ceilings, create a platform that stretches to the outdoor as porches to soften the slanting ceiling.
Greenwood Common
Unlike most residential housings,
Greenwood Commom require entries through a lovely walk circulating half of the courtyard, then made it to the living room.
The programming of this house reminds me of most tradition oriental housings have their courtyards closed up, the purpose of the courtyards are often served as a private garden (an escape) for the family in the house. Outdoor hallways are designed through or around the garden as the viewing circulation.
While interestingly in this case, the hallways are made as a interior part of the house.
First Church of Christ Scientist
First church of christ scientist is like a church walking out of a fairy tale. The hand painted quotes at the pillars, the different height rooftops at the front gate, and the cheerful orange lights hanging by the side all made this a lovely and peaceful place to stay at.
What I admire the most perhaps are the semi-transparent glass they use at windows on the side of main hall. Creating an illusion of the greens and sunlight seeping through that glass.
UC Berkerley
My favorite moment might be the large light fixture hanging on the entrance and the melting glass embed on the door. In this case, I do not enjoy the interior of the building as much, there are some awkward moments and usage on Oriental (both Chinese and Japanese) ornaments and decoration applied; especially comparing to the Haven’s House where in my opinion did a beautiful job on that. However, without a doubt, it has a very well crafted wooden furnitures that I admire.
San Francisco
Chinatown/ Pier 70, Union Iron Works/ Lundberg Design Studio/
Not until making it to Chinatown have I really get to understand my own culture.
This is also one of the greatest lesson I’ve learned so far during my exchange program: You never really get to know the complete self until you see and experience differences. (Culturally, Living Style, Values.. etc)
We can see a obvious living model difference in Chinatown comparing to the western society where you have residential areas and downtown business areas, while in Asian countries, we tend to keep things all in one pack: resident, working space, and stores. However, due to the harsh environment in the central districts of a city, people tend to move to suburbs nowadays, creating a similar traffic situation here.
The green rooftops are rare from Taiwan, and the lamp fixtures by the road are very american-chinese style.
San Francisco
Salesforce Tower, Transit Center, & Park/ Hannah House
Elevated Landscape design in urban has been quite popular in Taiwan upon residential architectures due to the limited space we have on ground (which provides land nothing more than pocket parks).
However, it always costs more resources one imagined to take care of the greens over time. With this preconception in mind, it is truly surprising to see this case in real life. It had me wonder whether it costs more to take care of all those variety of plants than building the structure itself.
Evidently, I seemed to be concerned about the wrong question. Where as few days later, due to structural concern, they’ve shut down the Transit Center.
Transit Center
Hannah House
Hannah house impressed me by its inserted speakers all over the house. There are a lot to learn from this case, such as the tricky usage of space through hexagon. Think about it, the left over usage a of space are now no longer in rectangular in plan, but triangular. Back at Taiwan Tech, we students always face annoying difficulties when it comes to “edges and corners” in plan: what do I do with it? What can I make use of it? It’s just difficult. In this case, by setting these left over spaces by the corner of the house, triangle turns out to be pleasant for small, decorative objects such as a vases.
Also the flexibility with hexagon provides a flexibility upon space usage programming. Where Frank designed two floor plans, one for parenting kids, and the other for enjoying elderly years with grandchildren.