Pacific Pointe is a 60-unit, 100% affordable housing project in San Francisco’s rapidly developing Hunters Point neighborhood. As Associate Architect on the project, INTERSTICE worked in collaboration with David Baker Architects to design the building for AMCAL of California, in addition to providing landscape architecture services to create a uniquely integrated project delivery.

 

Sited at the very top of the new Shipyards development area, the project commands excellent views of the San Francisco Bay and the coastline of surrounding cities near the Bay Trail. The hilltop entry is punctuated by a perforated Corten steel, five-story lantern-like structure which wraps the public assembly and common rooms around the elevator tower to shine as a beacon over the Bay at night. Taking advantage of the fresh bay breezes, the project is an open bridged housing concept with front doors to units entered directly from the open-air courtyards which provide secure and lush private and public gathering spaces for the families of the community.

 

The project’s extensive community engagement process resulted in a cultural storytelling fence at the entry which highlights the figures and history of this community while adding color and texture to the public street. The goal was to integrate this narrative into a prominent feature of the building. The front entry fence—the typical purpose of which is to separate or partition—was designed to create an expression that was instead poetically redefined to emphasize connection—that of culture, history, and community.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The building is formed by two, interlocking L-shaped volumes with extended walkways that curve and bridge between them, creating a unique transparency between separate courtyards that cascade down the steeply sloping site. The four- to five-story housing structures connected by bridges enclose and shelter two seasonal winter and summer courts, whose active and passive programs respond to solar orientation in serving the evolving community.

 

Site Plan 

The summer court is by-level, providing circulation for common areas, bicycle and car parking, elevator, and mailboxes. A small, lower grove offers a shaded lobby and a transition to the upper level. The other, winter court’s dense plantings ensure privacy for residents and are punctuated with play features, log rafts, and giant boat benches, complete with lighting elements, focal points, and lush ecological habitats. The underground parking structure is embedded and concealed into the slope of the site for easy open-air access to the lower court.

• Landscape
• Residential