VERTICAL STREET

"CORELESS" VERTICAL URBAN INCUBATOR

2016 Fall

Instructor: Maria Esnaola

50 St. Mary St, San Francisco, CA

This project serves as a platform to explore an idea of “coreless” design in vertical architecture. It proposes a new vertical street system, instead of a traditional core, to connect the solid spaces left over by the “void core”. With the street system in the center of the building, it frees the central space and allows more programs to be implemented, which provides a more efficient way for work and life. 

This proposal pays close attention to the nature of the neighborhood so as to provide the local workers and residents the most effective way to work and live. Because the site sits on a connection point between large public institutes on the NE corner (e.g. SF Chronicle), and small-scale start-up companies on the SW corner (e.g. woodshop), and given the needs of the proposed urban incubator to collaborate with the surrounding companies, the proposal is to create a new diagonal path that runs across the site to connect those two different types of buildings, which also voids the core.

Three bridges serving as both circulation and meeting areas connect the two towers separated by the central street system, and two sets of thin stairs serving as egress attached to the interior facades.