Market/Octavia Neighborhood Plan, San Francisco
Designed as Solomon ETC, 2001
John Ellis Urban Designer with Daniel Solomon
The Market/Octavia Neighborhood Plan was the outcome of the decision by the San Francisco voters to replace the Central Freeway, damaged in the 1989 Eathquake, with Octavia Boulevard and to undertake the repair of the urban fabric where the freeway had been. Solomon ETC were hired by the Planning Department to create a plan which could provide up to 750 dwellings (50% of them affordable) on the 27 freeway parcels. The urban design guidelines proposed a range of building types and scales to respond to the surrounding context with taller buildings on the slopes of Cathedral Hill and lower buildings within Hayes Valley.
Octavia Boulevard a multiway boulevard was designed by Alan Jacobs and Elizabeth Macdonald to accommodate through-traffic with local frontage streets on either side.
Axonometric view showing the various scales of development. Taller buildings around The Hub at the foot of Van Ness Ave and Market St.
A figure ground drawing showing the repair of the urban fabric along the path of the former freeway.
Aerial view of Octavia Boulevard showing Stanley Saitowitz's 8 Octavia Building at the corner of Market Street. (Photo: Saitowitz)
Market/Octavia in its urban context.
12 maps showing the evolution of the district from the 1850's to the present. Cataclysmic events such as the 1906 Earthquake and Fire, Urban Renewal and the Freeways together with the 1989 Quake have left a legacy of damage, which the Market/Octavia Plan aims to address.
The Central Freeway could be cut back even further and replaced by an extension of Octavia Boulevard along 13th Street, thus opening up further sites for new housing.
Diagrams showing the potential transformation of the Safeway site from a suburban to an urban model.