Set in San Francisco’s gentrifying Soma neighborhood, Ascending Program Link seeks to encourage interaction between users of the building’s multiple programs and, by extension, provide a link between different constituencies in the city. In order to achieve this, the building’s multiple programs are designed around a porous tube which houses the main stair, a series of gathering spaces, and opportunities for daylight and cross-ventilation.
1/8” = 1’-0” model | materials: museum board, acrylic, tinted acetate, paper
study models
operational diagram
plans | levels 1-5
exploded axonometric + vignettes
PROCESSION | The tube begins at the street corner for maximum pedestrian exposure, and then it bends against the southwest-facing back wall of the site to let filtered daylight into spaces further from the facade. Programmed bridges, catwalks, and seating nooks pierce through the tube and visually link the building’s different uses. The drawing above illustrates through vignettes the programmatic hybridizations that occur because of the tube. For example, in one vignette, a figure drawing studio faces opposite an archery range that hovers above the stair.
building sections
interior perspective | tube
This perspective illustrates the tube as simultaneously a visual and spatial link between different programs. As such, the tube is color-coded for wayfinding and to differentiate it as a communal space.
vignette | shuffleboard + tube
vignette | figure drawing studio + archery range
The section-elevation (above) illustrates the facade strategy, which is comprised of a series of horizontal bands which are differentiated for the light and privacy needs of the spaces. The second and third floors are shaded by an operable folding screen which can react to the spaces’ different needs at different times of day, while the fourth floor courts have a more minimal shading strategy to capture maximum daylight.
diagrams (from top to bottom): mechanical, framing, light + air
1/8” = 1’-0” model | materials: museum board, acrylic, tinted acetate, paper