Spring 2022
Instructors: Evan Jones and Margaret Ikeda
Biologists define an ecotone as a region of transition between two biological communities. In nature these two communities create edges that are legible but equally capable of growth, adaptation and change.
The historical settlement of the San Francisco Bay shoreline, like many urban estuaries, has been one of modifying naturalized edges in favor of fixed vertical surfaces engineered for specific hard infrastructures like piers and seawalls. Islais Creek, the largest watershed in the San Francisco peninsula, over time was gradually channelized and filled in to create new land for development. These types of infrastructural projects have created physical shoreline boundaries, marginalizing communities like Bayview Hunters Point from water access and leaving a legacy of polluted soil, underemployment and urban segregation. The pandemic has only exacerbated these economic and historical inequalities.
The mantra of UNICEF’s Child Friendly Cities Initiative is, “Every child has the right to grow up in an environment where they feel safe and secure, have access to basic services, clean air, and water, can play, learn and grow and where their voice is heard and matters”. San Francisco is part of the first cohort of cities taking on the initiative since August of 2020. The studio built upon this Initiative and collaborated with the local elementary school at Malcolm X Academy (MXA). The 5th grade students who live in Bayview Hunters Point had specific ideas and visions of what their neighborhood needs. This studio collaborated with these students to amplify their concepts through speculative visions of legacy projects possible at their school. The studio worked with a multidisciplinary team (MXA teacher and principal, CCA AEL & Benthic Lab, Y-PLAN, Kulima, and SF Planning) to elevate community solutions while implementing environmental justice fundamentals, using a multi-generational strategy for long term resilience.
Bayview Hunters Point is a former military, industrial, and isolated area of San Francisco, with a long history of being a food desert with lack of access to grocery stores and fresh produce. The studio was sited within Bayview, on the southwest bank of Islais Creek and focused on San Francisco Planning’s June 2021, Islais Creek Adaptation Strategy Final Report. The studio projects addressed the need for food security and supportive housing and offices. Working with modular housing manufacturer Factory OS, and Urban Farming group Top Leaf Farms, the studio synthesized the technical constraints of these systems into a comprehensive projects which were capable of adaptation to flooding and sea-level rise.
Buoyant Ecologies: Urban Ecotones at Islais Creek, SP 2022:
Lucas Cornejo, Venessa Davidenko, Mason Denton, Jason Gonzalez, Hsiao Chun Hou, Jung Yong Kim, Woohyung Kim, Caine Knuckles, Nicole Kuo, Claire Leffler, Savannah Lindsey, Yitian Ma, David Rege, David Rico-Gomez, Ashley G Rodriguez, Rebecca Velasquez