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In moving to the storefront of the historic Hallidie Building, the San Francisco chapter of the American Institute of Architects, and the Center for Architecture + Design sought to extend their reach beyond the architectural community. The Center is designed to advance a publicly accessible dialogue about art, architecture, design, and the built environment. The diverse, expanded program includes a café, gallery, lecture hall and meeting rooms as well as headquarter offices for the two non-profits. Highlighting the raw concrete shell of the building in concert with the insertion of finely crafted artisan pieces, the architecture showcases a wide range of design disciplines while achieving an unusually rigorous level of craft for a non-profit institution.
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With its location in Downtown San Francisco, which has been severely depleted by the pandemic, the Center serves as a catalyst to reoccupy the urban center of the city. The street-level presence of the Center, and its inviting cafe storefront, serves to welcome everyone into thinking about the built environment, and envisioning a vibrant future for cities. As a community space, the Center hosts lectures, exhibitions, youth programs, screenings, and events with local organizations. To educate youth of the City who would not typically be exposed to the design field, organizations such as Youth Art Exchange partner with the Center to provide both physical and intellectual exposure to design.
The Center is on track to achieve LEED Gold. The project is mindful of its environmental footprint through the use of local and reclaimed materials. Acoustically, the Center has been carefully designed to work for the variety of uses and meet the LEED acoustic criteria. Felt baffles provide attenuation throughout the open spaces, and absorptive wood panels and felt wall panels control sound attenuation within the lecture hall and meeting rooms. Energy performance provides 28% better performance than California’s minimum requirements while enhanced indoor air quality is provided through increased ventilation. The newly inserted skylights provide daylight deep within the space while the double height green wall correspondingly brings biophilia and nature into the space.
The design was one of extraction and selective insertions to create a Center that honors the historic shell while highlighting craftsmanship of many disciplines. Accretive finishes were removed, exposing a deep, cathedral-like space with concrete ceiling ribs and columns. Selectively introduced elements serve discrete purposes and are subservient to the shell. Acoustic baffles mirror the hue and rhythm of the shell’s concrete ribs. A sloped floor guides the flow of circulation through longitudinal space, from the gestural welcome desk to the repurposed vault. Lighting balances movement with pause, providing moments to linger on the art on the gallery walls. At the spaces’ far end, a green wall and skylight create a living beacon for visitors.
The architect recruited elite artisans to donate their work, showcasing a range of disciplines while achieving an unusually rigorous level of craft for a non-profit institution. Artisans include concrete fabricators, woodworkers, glass sculptors, custom light fabricators and metal workers – each providing their craftsmanship in collaboration with the design team to create moments of wonder within the space. In creating their work, the artisans documented their process through photographs and videos to be assembled into a film and book to be viewed by visitors to the space. Altogether the Center is a place where the artistry of numerous disciplines is made palpable and accessible to the public.
The Center greatly benefited from the team's stunning design and unwavering commitment to this project, despite the challenges of designing a significant project through COVID-19 shutdown. Aidlin Darling’s dedication to our shared ambition of building a world-class cultural institution went above and beyond the role of traditional designers, immersing themselves in the development of the community around this new center in downtown San Francisco. Stacy Williams, AIA SF Executive Director
In 1998, co-founders Joshua Aidlin and David Darling began the studio around a woodshop, developing a hands-on practice driven by a reverence for resources. Today, this passion for making anchors the studio’s collaborative process. Our approach to each project is client and site specific, and includes open communication among clients, consultants, fabricators, and builders to achieve unexpected results.
We pursue architecture that is restrained, engages the senses, and connects us to place and to ourselves. In a world increasingly dominated by the visual and virtual, we practice multisensory design, one in which the way something feels, smells, and sounds is as important as how it looks.
Since its inception, the studio has garnered over 300 regional, national and international awards. In 2013, the firm was bestowed a Smithsonian’s Cooper-Hewitt National Design Award honoring design excellence, innovation and the enhancement of the quality of life.
