Sunset Parklet

Inspired by San Francisco’s topography in contrast to the regular street grid Interstice Architects developed a simple, well detailed and synthetic urban equipment.

The Sunset Parklet is a new public amenity designed by Interstice Architects for two local community oriented businesses in San Francisco’s Outer Sunset district on the Judah light-rail transit line.

Interstice Architects’ designers took on the controversial 15 mt long site as a pro-bono project to help the Other Avenues Whole Food Co-op Market and the popular Sea Breeze Café develop and realize a simple, well detailed and synthetic solution to their multi-headed program demands and complex public process hurdles – which was in difficulty and losing momentum.

An ambitious program included seating for eating, a community gathering space, a heavy bicycle parking component, dogs, children’s play, durability and low tech construction, while remaining whimsical, playful and engaging for all of their diverse constituencies and a host of desired seasonal, day and nighttime activities.

Interstice explored the common sculptural aspects of these seemingly divergent formal strategies to arrive at a uniquely San Francisco solution. The city’s topography in contrast to the regular street grid became a guiding metaphor for the projects development. Despite a deceptively regular street grid, San Francisco’s topography is famous for its undulations (like waves or sand dunes). Four streets cut from different parts of the city’s fabric would hardly matchup when placed next to one another. They would create juxtapositions along their sectional edges, and this became the operational device for how the Parklet would be articulated.

Individual strips rise and fall creating complex adjacencies as they pass each other enfolding opportunities for a wide variety of programs and a rich diversity of formal “readings”. The final result is unique and exciting in its formal abstraction, while at the same time comforting and highly functional. From some angles it resembles a large barge, or freighter carrying its passengers to the nearby beach, while from the pedestrian approach, it offers a warm complex wood environment as a refuge from the concrete sidewalk in which to relax, play, gather with friends, tell stories, eat lunch, or simply occupy a quiet corner alone with a book surrounded by swaying native grasses.