Mission Bay Parking Structure

Serving the laboratories and offices of San Francisco’s Mission Bay, this 1,420-space parking structure on seven floors inflects in scale and texture to its emerging urban context. The south elevation captures sunlight and shadow at the city scale in a deeply canted plaster mask. Its openings extend and narrow, echoing the bustling traffic of Third Street. The weighty mask appears to float; beneath it, a recessed walkway shelters the pedestrian not only from the elements but also from the vastness of the yet-to-be-completed redevelopment zone.

In contrast, the north and east façades, which face public parks, are clad in perforated aluminum panels. Their pixelated imagery of California’s redwood forests evokes the filigree of the parks’ tree canopies at a finer, more personal scale.

The primary pedestrian entrance at the building’s northeast corner, rendered like the south elevation in canted plaster, is a figural presence overlooking the parks. Here the walker & recently and soon again to be a driver is echoed and enlarged in the architecture and given pause to take in the surrounding cityscape. All waste produced during the construction of the project was sorted by material type (wood, metal, etc.) before being sent to a recycling center. Stormwater is gathered and sent to a grease-oil separator, where it is cleaned before discharge. Recycled non-potable greywater is used for irrigation of landscaping on the site. This project was a Design-Build competition, won by Overaa Construction and WRNS Studio