Perkins Eastman wins competition to redesign San Francisco’s Harvey Milk Plaza
By David Malone, Associate Editor
Perkins Eastman’s design for the reimagined Harvey Milk Memorial Plaza in San Francisco will create a walkable, active, and transit-oriented civic space at the site of the current plaza and MUNI station at Castro and Market Streets. The site of the plaza is at the corner where Harvey Milk would gather and rally the Castro community.
A stepping and ramping amphitheater set within a field of LED candles highlights the design, which was unanimously selected by The Friends of Harvey Milk Plaza after a months-long competition. Visitors will climb the stairs of the amphitheater and navigate a timeline that details Milk’s journey from business owner and community activist to his election to the San Francisco Board of Supervisors.
The new plaza will create a distinct gateway to the Castro neighborhood and also allow the site to become a new architectural, human-scaled urban icon for the city. “The hope is that visitors will be inspired to take up the mantle of Milk’s unfinished work and continue to fight for civil rights,” says Perkins Eastman Associate McCall Wood, who along with Associate Justin Skoda led the winning entry’s design team.
Perkins Eastman will lead the team that includes Arup is the project’s structural engineer and Lightswitch SF as the lighting designer.