Bruner/Cott was recently selected as a finalist, along with West 8 and AMP Arquitectos, in an international competition for the redesign of Fort Mason Center in San Francisco, CA. Our proposal consolidates and reinforces the existing arts, creates the new San Francisco Public Market as an economic base and a regional draw, and deals with major issues of access and visibility – all within the context of the historic site. We believe that any solution, no matter how creative, must have a firm basis in economic reality if it is to be successful.
The design proposes development of a new San Francisco Public Market throughout the ground level of the site and its buildings, and adding new docks that will bring visitors into the basins between the site’s enormous piers. The architectural solution includes a framework of steel canopies – an enormous covered shed and canopies along the water’s edge – and a “people transporter” conveying visitors from upper Fort Mason and the top of a new parking garage over the rooftops of Lower Fort Mason (with 3600 views of downtown San Francisco and the Golden Gate Bridge) to the heart of the complex. New paths connect the Center to adjacent parks and cycle-ways while the municipal trolley system extends through a rehabilitated tunnel to enter the site in the heart of the market and arts complex. The five existing theaters come together in a single pier structure adjacent to a new fishing pier. A newly acquired third pier accommodates studio arts education on its upper floors and public access to market-related restaurants and gallery space at grade.