Public Art + Residential living

The Dogpatch Artwalk was created through a collaboration between Fletcher Studio, the client, and local artists. The previous structure at 950 Tennessee fully covered the entire lot, building edge to building edge. The new building's design afforded a unique opportunity to reconnect Tennessee and Minnesota Streets via a mid-block crossing. Fletcher Studio worked with Handel Architects on the new 30'-0" wide public passage that shares a nearly exact footprint with the historic Kentucky Place, which had once joined the two streets but was eliminated in 1935

Fletcher Studio and Handel Architects worked to site a major building entry in the Artwalk to help draw people into the new passageway through a series of reclaimed stone furniture, linear lighting, and two suspended, illuminated rings at the core of the passage. In addition, the design team saw a unique opportunity to create a curated public art experience in the new public space and created a program dedicated to highlighting female Bay Area artists on an annual basis.

SITE PLAN

aluminum panels
local artists
exploration

A series of aluminum panels, reminiscent of monoliths, hold each end of the plaza, the central gathering area under the suspended circulate fixture, and additional panels in between. These 5 panels will hold the artwork of a new artist on an annual basis. For the inaugural exhibition, the design team and client reviewed numerous artists and selected Hughen|Starkweather. The space's reinvention of Kentucky Place as a contemporary gathering area and outdoor gallery, made the historic, cartographic, and political explorations of Hughen|Starkweather an ideal fit. Their 5-panel exploration of the area's geographic reinvention through grading, fill, and shoreline manipulation is taken from an 1889 article in the San Francisco Examiner and explores the consequences of radically reconfiguring existing ecologies for urban systems. You can learn more about their work here.