Winter Issue 2022 - 43

4. Cellular Origami
SAN FRANCISCO, CALIFORNIA
The University of California, San Francisco, held a design competition
to create a new facade for its existing Third Street parking structure in
Mission Bay. The previous channel glass facade had failed and been
removed in 2015, exposing worn concrete. Meanwhile, prominent new
buildings like the Chase Center arena and Uber's headquarters were
in the works across the street. The university wanted to strengthen its
identity at this edge of campus. Local firm IwamotoScott Architecture
won the design competition with Cellular Origami, which references
spiraling strands of DNA in a nod to research taking place at the institution.
Completed
in 2020, the new facade consists of silvery anonized
aluminum panels cut into four shapes. Organized into vertical
strands, these " petals, " each folded in one of five different combinations
of angles, reflect daylight at varying degrees of intensity over the
course of the day. At night, the panels reflect the light emanating from
the nearby Chase Center, eliminating the garage's need for additional
exterior illumination.
5. Center Street Parking Garage
BERKELEY, CALIFORNIA
Home to a number of theaters and other performing arts venues, Berkeley's
Downtown Arts District long relied on a 1950s parking garage that
offered an inadequate 420 spaces and no longer met seismic safety
standards. The city demolished the structure and replaced it with an
eight-level, 720-space garage on the same tight midblock site. Local
design architect Marcy Wong Donn Logan Architects, working with architect
of record International Parking Design Inc. of Oakland, gave the
new building an appropriately artistic presence, equipping its two street
facades with sharply folded, perforated steel panels in more than 20
sizes, arranged to suggest two waves flowing in opposite directions.
Programmable LEDs project a color-changing light show onto the metal
panels at night. Well-lit, open-air staircases occupy one corner of each
facade, red on one side and green on the other for easy wayfinding.
Sustainability-minded elements include rooftop solar panels, valet parking
for 250 bicycles, electric vehicle charging stations, carshare parking,
bioswales to capture rainwater, and a micro-grid hub for emergency
power. The garage opened in 2018.
6. Karen Blixens Plads
COPENHAGEN, DENMARK
Copenhagen reportedly has more bicycles than people, but its success
as a bike-friendly city comes with a challenge: where to park them all.
This was especially true at one of the biggest public squares in the
city, Karen Blixens Plads, which occupies the heart of the University of
Copenhagen campus. Long a merely functional parking area to house
bicycles, the space has been remade as a hybrid park and public
square, weaving in a variety of places for recreation and meeting, and
accommodating up to 2,000 parked cycles.
Local architecture firm Cobe created a new surface of hills and valleys
to connect the campus's three main entrances and the nearby Metro
station. With equal amounts of hardscape and landscape, the square
provides a transition between Amager Commons-a nature reserve-
and buildings. Parking spots are tucked beneath three concrete-domed
hills as well as in covered and uncovered " bicycle beds " sunk slightly
into the terrain. At night, lighting illuminates the hills from within. Completed
in 2019, the square also incorporates rainwater collection and
stormwater management systems.
WINTER 2022
URBAN LAND
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©BILLY HUSTACE PHOTOGRAPHY/WWW.BILLYHUSTACE.COM
IWAMOTOSCOTT
RASMUS HJORTSHØJ-COAST
Winter Issue 2022

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