Forgotten Space Above Us: Living Roofs

The concept of a living roof dates back millennia. Humans excavated shelter underground, in hillsides, or on the sides of steep cliffs, which were intentionally covered with living vegetation (despite the structural flaws a meandering root might pose). These dwellings were naturally cooler, provided aesthetic benefits and limited the erosive forces exerted on structures. As the dwellings evolved above ground, living roofs maintained their place in areas across the world, from the the desert southwest to Scandinavia. In our quest to remove man from nature; to modernize and create entirely new environments, we lost sense of how to integrate the natural world with the artificial. Our modern era of intensive urban habitation has given way to concrete, asphalt and steel, leaving behind acres of gray, heat-absorbing rooftops.

However, the myriad of benefits provided by a living roof has been "rediscovered" by urban designers, architects and builders alike. In the quest to reduce our overall impact on the world around us (from reduced heating costs in winter to small-scale air purification plants can provide), living roofs are being reintroduced into the mainstream. The website Ecosalon.com has highlighted 17 examples from across the world, broadening the envelope of what is possible on the underutilized space above us. In our small 7 by 7 city, we here at SFB believe San Francisco should not be left out of this wonderful trend.

SFB and the Geary Corridor

Congratulations to SFB associate Jonathan Goldberg for appointment to the Geary Corridor Bus Rapid Transit Citizens Advisory Committee (or simply GCAC). Jonathan was selected among a list of qualified candidates and appointed to represent the Downtown neighborhood during the environmental analysis of the Geary BRT project. With 10 other members representing interests along the Geary Boulevard Corridor, Jonathan will be providing input to refine the BRT alternatives and ultimately select a preferred alternative for the project.

We are hopeful and excited that Jonathan will bring a contemplative and open-minded approach to the CAC, as well as a keen eye for streetscape design, beautification and transit efficacy. Congrats Jonathan!

SFB on SFGate

San Francisco Chronicle's Urban Design Critic John King has brought the possible changes to Mid-Market to the attention of many SFGate and Chronicle readers yesterday morning. After a World Series parade and celebration brought some much appreciated vitality to the area, John King discusses with Interim Executive Director Jim Chappell the proposed incremental changes to Mid-Market drafted by SFB's 2010 Prize Winner Cynthia Talley's report "Mid-Market: A Center for Creative Action." From mobile pianos meant to reflect the historical nature of the arts and theater district to book racks outside the main branch of the library, Ms. Talley's approach uses many existing attributes and implementation of temporary small to medium scale changes to the district to enhance economic vitality. Although the report is only a proposed set of ideas, it broadens the discussion of what might be possible for this section of Market Street.

We hope this article engages San Franciscans to take action and accelerates the incremental changes needed to change Mid-Market. Here's the link to John King's article.

What Makes Cities Great

In an excellent interview and perspective of the life work of Charles Landry, a writer, thinker, speaker and founder of the consulting firm Comedia, Strategy+Business provides insight into what makes cities great. A political economist by training, Mr. Landry has intertwined various ideas, from the commercial to the cultural, that helps establish and sustainably maintain a sense of place readily noticeable in every great city. His viewpoint provides an interesting lens for the future, as well as broad ideas to remake underutilized areas of our cities today.

Here's the link to the Strategy+Business article.

Momentum on Mid-Market

Among the 80 or so guests at the presentation of "Mid-Market, A Center for Creative Action" there were representatives from the DPW, Mayor's Office of Economic and Workforce Development, the Great Streets project, the San Francisco City Planning Department, the San Francisco Planning Commission as well as numerous other neighborhood stakeholders and concerned citizens. The overwhelming sense of support and enthusiasm for a creative / arts district along Mid-Market was encouraging and inspiring. Lets keep the vision alive!

Public Realm Prize report, 'Mid-Market, a Center for Creative Action' Presented

Tuesday September 21 was the debut of the first annual San Francisco Beautiful Public Realm Prize report, “Mid-Market, a Center for Creative Action.” Eighty people crowded into Luggage Store Gallery at 1019 Market Street at 5:30 for a wine and cheese reception followed by the 6:15 presentation.
The report was prepared by Cindy Talley, a recent graduate with a Master of Landscape Architecture from the University of California, Berkeley.

In sponsoring the San Francisco Beautiful Public Realm Prize, San Francisco Beautiful’s objectives are:
- give a gift to the city that will stimulate positive change to the environment
- demonstrate SFB’s philosophy and principles in a tangible way
- provide the opportunity for an exemplary young professional to contribute to the city.

This year we selected Mid-Market Street as the site of our efforts because:
- last November, Prop D, encouraging billboards on this street, was erroneously being promoted as promoting positive change and economic development
- SFB led the charge to inform the public, who defeated Prop D at the polls
- SFB then took the responsibility to produce a positive alternative that is complementary to the many efforts the City is putting into Mid-Market and that can demonstrate quick, affordable changes to the environment.

Market Street will be repaved in about five years. The city is mounting major design studies to rethink the entire street, from the Ferry Building to Octavia Boulevard. San Francisco Beautiful, working with the Planning Department and other City agencies, selected the most troubled stretch, from Sixth to Van Ness, to posit a number of activation strategies. Whatever specific design solutions the City chooses to ultimately build, the City and SFB believe they must be in support of two principles:
- life on Market Street should reflect its physical prominence in the city
- pedestrians in the public realm should experience comfort, enjoyment and safety.

The goals we are attempting to optimize are:
- increase pedestrian activity on weekdays, nights and weekends by developing a creative center of theater, cinema, music, art and poetry
- fill the need for affordable creative space through simple, low-cost renovations to empty buildings
- establish an art themed trajectory for future changes to Mid-Market

The Many Efforts to Improve Mid-Market

There is no shortage of efforts and opinions on improving Mid-Market. I've been bookmarking this work through delicious. Taken together, the links provide a sense of all the activity.

Progress on Mid-Market Visioning, by Cindy Talley

There was a time when the character of city life was unrelated to the quality of urban space. Around the turn of the century, streets were full of people completing the necessary arrands of the day. This film of Market Street -taken in 1906- shows just how bustling the street was.

Today, Jan Gehl explains, we are often able to plan our lives so that we don't need to use the public realm. This means that the quality and content of our streets and parks have a major impact on how frequently they are used. In mid-market's case, the decline of first-run cinemas mid-century left a stark void on the street. As I curate temporary program and design interventions to last until Market's repaving around 2015, I am striving to build upon existing activities and create new attractions that will once again bring people the area. A better used mid-market means a safer, more delightful place.

2010 SUMMER INTERN PROJECT – VISUAL POLLUTION BASELINE REPORT

San Francisco Beautiful is happy to welcome as our summer intern Tomas Sanguinetti an Environmental Science major at Dickinson College (Carlisle, PA).

Tomas will work to develop a baseline report on the regulation of billboards and other outdoor advertising that will:
- examine alternative regulation and enforcement mechanisms
- understand legal precedents and cases in the US, California and San Francisco
- understand best practices nationwide
- develop a roadmap of alternative next steps SF Beautiful can take on the regulation and enforcement of general advertising and signage

San Francisco Beautiful will use this Baseline Report to develop an Action Plan to help guide the organization and a Summary Report will be used to:
-brief politicians
-brief the media
-inform neighborhood groups

Types of outdoor advertising to be covered:
-billboards (general advertising)
-electronic signs
-wheat pasted
-on furniture, by city contract (kiosks, bus shelters, news racks, etc)
-on transit vehicles
-banners on poles
-mobile billboards
-temporary billboards in vacant storefronts
-A-frames
-For sale/for rent signs

Stay tuned as Tomas will be writing a regular blog on his efforts. Follow him as he makes his way through LexisNexis, newspaper clippings, library stacks and whatever other rock he must look under to find his answers. Good luck, Tomas!

San Francisco Beautiful Debuts Market Street Visions Project

Following on the heels of last November’s defeat of Prop D which would have plastered the Central Market Street area with wall-to-wall billboards, San Francisco Beautiful has debuted the first annual San Francisco Beautiful Urban Realm Prize designed to create positive change in this neighborhood. The Prize was won by Cindy Talley, a recent graduate of the University of California Berkeley with a Master of Landscape Architecture, and provides a stipend for three months work. Teamed with SFB’s Public Affairs Committee, in cooperation with SFB Board member Scott Preston and his team at Design + Planning at AECOM and the San Francisco City Planning Department, we will present the city with a vision of what this troubled neighborhood could become. We are studying Market from Fifth to Van Ness, including the U. N. Plaza area and Fulton Mall, and Grove Street from Market to Van Ness.

The plan will present a conceptual vision, tying together ideas about how best to use the public realm – for pedestrians, cyclists, trolleys, and motor vehicles – to address what John King, Chronicle Urban Design writer recently characterized as “forlorn at one moment, threatening the next, and it has persisted for more than four decades …” He goes on to quote former long time planning director Dean Macris, “If there was ever a reason to rethink it, this is the time.”

Rethink it we are, including everything from sidewalk widths, traffic mix and location, lighting, landscaping, drainage, and ways to activate the sidewalk and plazas to attract pedestrians and ultimately economic activity. SFB’s work in the 1990s to make it easier to permit sidewalk cafes has paid off all around the city, and most recently even in the central market area which now has its fist and popular such venue.

Cindy will be adding to the San Francisco Beautiful Blog as she makes her way down Market Street. Come back to see what she is discovering.

Jim Chappell Named Interim Executive Director

San Francisco Beautiful welcomes Jim Chappell as its Interim Executive Director. Contact Jim at jim@sfbeautiful.org.

Advertising California Out of Debt

As many of you know, San Francisco Beautiful has been taking on the blight created by general advertising, and in particular flashing, digital billboards for years. This editorial in the Sacramento Bee came to our attention and felt that it was worthy to share with you. Governor Schwarzenegger  wants to sell advertising space on state highway message boards in order to fill the state's depleted coffers.

Editorial:
Flashing road ads? Why stop there?

Published: Wednesday, Feb. 10, 2010 - 12:00 am | Page 14A

Unwilling to pursue revenue options that have the word "tax" attached to them, the Schwarzenegger administration has floated yet another grasping-at-straws idea to fill the state's depleted coffers.
This time the governor wants to sell advertising space on state highway message boards.
You laugh? Don't.
The proposal is serious. If approved, existing message boards - the ones used to alert drivers to road hazards ahead or abducted children - would be upgraded with LED technology and converted to colorful commercial grade electronic billboards. The state would lease the billboards to outdoor advertising firms and collect the money upfront to help balance the state budget - as much as $2 billion over 20 years for 500 billboards.
But there's a hitch. Because the billboards would operate within the rights of way of interstate highways, the proposal requires a change in federal law. State Transportation Department officials have sent a waiver request to federal highway administrators asking permission.
A federal review of electronic billboard safety is already under way, suggesting the governor's idea is not as far-fetched as some might think. But the review involves e-billboards alongside highways, not on the road itself.
Frankly, we're both hoping and betting that the state's waiver request doesn't go anywhere. Billboards are ugly, and LED billboards are blinking ugly. Not only that, but they could pose a traffic hazard if they distract motorists already distracted by the lunch they are eating and the cell-phone calls they are conducting.
If the Schwarzenegger administration follows this path, it may soon embrace an idea first suggested by Board of Equalization member Bill Leonard - sell naming rights to various state buildings.
"Major corporations pay big bucks to have their names on sports arenas," Leonard said in his weekly newsletter. "It's time California joined the auction. "
Think about the possibilities. The California Environmental Protection Agency headquarters in downtown Sacramento could become the Chevron EPA Building.
The California secretary of state's office could be sponsored by Diebold, the controversial maker of digital voting machines.
The Board of Equalization building? Perhaps Clorox could sponsor it - since a lot of bleach is needed to clean up that mold.
Crass? Yes, but preferable to electronic billboards in the middle of state highways. At least a big Terminix sign on the Capitol dome wouldn't be a road hazard.
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