SF State University campus plan, San Francisco CA
Designed as WRT/Solomon ETC
John Ellis Urban Designer with Jim Stickley
San Francisco State University occupies a sprawling 134-acre site on the southwestern part of the city. The campus is located between an urban edge along 19th Avenue and a rural one overlooking Lake Merced. From its founding in 1958 the campus has grown in a haphazard manner, one building at a time. SF State had recently purchased the two adjacent residential properties, Stonestown to the north and part of Park Merced to the south. Growth projection was for a 20% increase in the number of students to 25,000 full-time enrollees by 2020. The intention was to house as many students as possible on campus in order to reduce traffic and parking demand. The plan harnesses this new growth to shape coherent neighborhoods, districts, and sequences of public space for the first time in the Campus’ history.