Centering the
Civic Design
Competition
Professor Loraine Dearstyne Fowlow and Dr. Richard Levy recently participated in an open call for designs to renovate the Federal Building Plaza in San Francisco. Entitled Centering the Civic, the competition called for designs which addressed the issues of civic space, the role of the Federal Government in public life and the placement of the Plaza within the context of the Civic Center area of San Francisco. The design submitted was in keeping with the existing fabric of Beaux-Arts public spaces in the Civic Center with a Plaza of a series of garden rooms. Various public amenities are located throughout the Plaza, servicing a large constituency of Federal workers, city residents, visitors and homeless people. The design approach taken included and accommodated the homeless, as opposed to an attitude of exclusion. The amenities are housed in pavilions which are designed to capture the extreme wind of the Plaza and convert both wind and sun energy to electrical and mechanical energy. Water runs throughout the Plaza as a source of relief from the hard surfaces of the city as well as an irrgation system for the grid of trees covering the site.
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| Dearstyne Fowlow, Loraine and richard Levy, "Centering the Civic" Plaza Design Competition Entry, San Francisco. |
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