11.29.2006

Site Proposal




This thesis proposes a site at the intersection of 4th and Washington St. in Oakland, California for the design a new facility to house the envisioned Bay Area Youth Artists for Humanity program. The site is composed of three parcels, currently occupied by a three individual parking lots, two privately and one public. The corner lot, at 409 Washington Street, occupies 7050 square feet and the middle lot, at 518 4th St, occupies 4583 square feet. Both are rectangular sites. The third lot does not have any information readily available about it. It is nearly equal in area, but is roughly triangular in shape, tapering down to just 15 feet wide at the western boundary. All three lots are asphalt paved and surrounded by chain link fence and contain no built structures. In addition, a narrow strip of land tapers off along 4th Street to the east of the second lot, providing a 10 foot buffer between the sidewalk and the BART fence. This parcel would not be built upon but would be included in the landscaping plan.
The site is a residue of open space leftover by the construction of the city’s transportation infrastructure. The tunnel exit/entrance for BART bounds the north side, a deep trench which holds eastbound and westbound subway lines, between concrete retaining walls. One block further north is the merge point for the 880 and 980 freeways. Two blocks south runs the Amtrak and freight rail lines. Beyond that is the Oakland Estuary a shipping channel between Oakland and Alameda that serves the port infrastructure to the west.
Hemmed in by infrastructure, the site sits at a crossroads within Oakland. This neighborhood is well-served by all modes of urban transportation, including bus, subway, train, car and ferry, and yet it is cut off from the center of the city by the linear arrangement of these lines. This condition allowed the conversion of the neighborhood from industrial to commercial and residential to occur, but remains a burden to the area in terms of its physical presence. This industrial/seaport/transportation nexus condition is held in common with many other recently redeveloped areas in the country, such as SOMA in San Francisco, Fort Point in Boston, the Meatpacking District in New York. In all these cases, the confluence of infrastructure facilitated industrial uses, but as this infrastructure was upgraded in the post-war years, the fabric of the neighborhood was torn apart. In these situations, the influx of arts and culture have been a prime means for revitalizing the area. The City of Oakland is cognizant of these factors and has put in much effort to use them to its advantage.
Currently, the area is defined by Jack London Square, a 1970’s mixed-use redevelopment that contains hotels, restaurants, retail and office space. The square was perhaps a good idea in terms of planning but was constructed in an architectural language that is tacky and dated. The square is a prime tourist destination for Oakland but has had much difficulty attracting city residents and has seen many of its retail tenants depart in recent years. The larger area around the square, now called the Jack London District, is a former industrial warehouse zone that now holds a variety of businesses, largely in renovated warehouse spaces. The push for the redevelopment of the area is underway, as outlined in the Oakland Estuary Policy Plan. Many of the typical identifiers of gentrification, such as residential-loft conversions, design firms, and artists studios, can be found here. The plan, however, makes it clear that in this particular portion of the plan arts and cultural uses should be supported.
In the case of the artist spaces, however, there is an interesting trend in the Jack London District that differentiates it from other artist zones, like the one along Telegraph Ave. While the Art Murmur galleries of Telegraph bank on a claim to a geographically defined territory within the city (which brings with it all sorts of ethical questions) the galleries, performance spaces and studios of the Jack London District, take on a more inclusive identity the revolves around outreach to the city as a whole. Pro Arts Gallery is exemplary of this condition, as the program not only operates a gallery in the area, but organizes the East Bay Open Studios and serves a network of hundreds of artists across the whole region. While this approach does not neglect its surroundings, it looks beyond the notion of trying to fix or help a deserving place, towards serving a larger community.
This approach reveals a potential for the neighborhood to become a cultural crossroads for Oakland rather than just an infrastructural one. Bay Area Youth Artists for Humanity aims strives to become part of and strengthen this cultural context. The architectural proposal will become a site for a much larger network of youth and mentor artists, members, patrons and visitors who arrive there to learn, create and experience. Rather than seeking a singular context to relate to and trying to adapt to the specificity of a particular neighborhood, the program intends to create a new community whose locality is all of Oakland, in which diverse individuals from all over the city can come together. The program will celebrate and be shaped by the various gravitational forces that affect the area, from Downtown, Chinatown, Uptown, West Oakland, the Port, the Lake, Jingletown, Fruitvale, San Antonio and even Alameda. As a newcomer to Oakland, this situation is ideal for one who cannot claim a specific neighborhood but is more interested in interactions with a cross-section of the city’s inhabitants. The hope is that working alongside the other non-profit arts organizations in the area, such as Pro Arts Gallery, Swarm Studios, Oakland Metro, MOCHA, Oaklandish and the Crucible, the BayAFH can be part of a cultural transformation for this part of the city.
That said the quirky mix of uses in the neighborhood opens up many opportunities for involvement and cooperation for a young arts program. Other non-profits, like Sports for Kids, Pro Arts, and Oakland Metro make their homes here. Tourists who find little of the culture of Oakland contained in the square itself are eager to soak it up in the nearby galleries. Restaurants and bars provide some semblance of a night-life. A loose compound of civic and social services, including the Oakland Police Department, Courthouse, Social Welfare, Probation and directly across the street from the site, the City Coroner’s office. For better or worse, more and more lofts are popping up to the north and west, and with them the inevitable signs of gentrification. Above all this tower the cranes of Oakland’s port, reminding everyone that this remains as a working port zone despite its gradual conversion. This is a context that is transitional, conflicted and hard to pin down. This thesis proposes that BayAFH can be a unifying for the area, using art to simultaneously strengthen the existing community and create a new one.
After a lot of careful consideration I have decided to design on an open site from the ground up. While doing an adaptive reuse project had great appeal, this open site offers more potential, to do an innovative design project and to deal with the realities and limitations of the proposed situation. This thesis will propose a visionary design for the site that considers the ideal situation for the BayAFH program rather than the initial conditions. Programs like the one I have in mind never start big. They work their way up from humble beginnings. The original Artists for Humanity in Boston began when a practicing artist invited a group of six students to come work with her in her tiny studio. They spent two or three years there, learning to paint and completing only a few commissions before they found a suitable space. And when they found that space, it was essentially donated to them because the real estate owner was inspired by their vision. It is my intention to use this project to research spatial, programmatic, educational and economic tactics that support this particular design proposal and can also be carried with me as I attempt to actually impliment this program in the coming years.

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