Reflection Center

Arch 100b - Spring ‘20

The Reflection Center is a community oriented exhibition space, policy center, and museum, providing a public place for locals and visitors alike to learn, relax, and socialize.

Situated on the corner of Bryant Street and Jack London Alley, The Reflection Center’s ramp activates the sidewalks, encouraging pedestrians to walk around the bustling South Park neighborhood of San Francisco while they learn or relax.

A flexible ground floor opens up onto the street, acting as an extension of the public sidewalk. While the majority of the South Park neighborhood provides a walkable variety of cultural centers, apartment buildings, professional offices, art galleries, and restaurants. Bryant Street is a loud and congested thoroughfare. The Reflection Center softens the streetscape, encouraging walking in and around the South Park neighborhood, starting with a public ramp that circumambulates the building. Visitors may ascend the ramp, learn from and interact with exhibitions about San Francisco, attend lectures on city planning, or enjoy the sweeping views from the public rooftop.

The Reflection Center provides a permanent home for the 1940's WPA scale model of San Francisco, a lecture hall, meeting spaces, an urban planning and policy center, and a public rooftop park.

The public ramp is a continuation of the sidewalk, serving as both an exhibition space and circulation to the roof. The building is designed to be communal and programmatically flexible, engaging in urban life in the same way that sidewalks do. The majority of the building is open to the public at all times, providing an inspiring place for locals and visitors to learn, socialize, or eat lunch with sweeping views of the skyline.

Reflection Center

The Reflection Center is a community oriented exhibition space, policy center, and museum, providing a public place for locals and visitors alike to learn, relax, and socialize.

Thesis

Oakland Concourse