Chase Center, the Golden State Warriors new San Francisco home, is more than just a 18,064-seat arena for watching basketball. Programmed activities extend outside of the building’s walls and spill onto the surrounding area, creating a new major public open space for the city.
Designed by SWA, the pedestrian-friendly, year-round destination includes 100,000 sf of retail space and 3.2 acres of plazas, public open space, and adjacent office buildings and art installations. The public space becomes an entertainment venue in its own right as its series of outdoor spaces and performance/gathering areas are programmed to either complement events in the Chase Center or stand on their own.
The modular landscape, which was designed as a series of outdoor living rooms that can remake and animate the space as needed, was designed to serve a dual purpose. It directs circulation by guiding thousands of visitors to and from the arena, but it also offers a number of gathering spaces to accommodate those who want to relax and enjoy the offering of seasonal activities. Custom designed planters/seating modules can be moved by forklift to create space for ice skating, farmer’s markets, a car show, or an instant micro-garden.
“This is an urban mixed-use project and as such, it’s a bit of a chameleon," notes Rene Bihan, Managing Principal, SWA. “Neighbors can dine alongside the growing workforce and fans of sports and music. We designed the site to offer an urban stroll through a series of connected spaces that change with seasonal and event programming.”
See Also: Sports teams get in the game: Mixed-use developments are using sports stadiums as their anchors
Two of the projects major features are a 35,000-sf central plaza that doubles as an event space and a 25,000-sf triangular plaza that hosts a permanent installation titled “Seeing Spheres” by Danish artist Olafur Eliasson. A wide, spiraling pedestrian path connects the spaces as it rises and curves alongside the arena, echoing the form of the arena and offering terraces and view platforms of the bay. The spiral theme is also repeated in the landscape through the site’s paving, with stainless steel bands embedded to convey a sense of circular movement, and in the scoring pattern of cast-in-place concrete. On the city side, pathways with seating connect to the ground plane to draw pedestrians from nearby transit and neighborhoods into the plaza’s central space.
A garden along 3rd Street provides a learning experience by showing the bio-filtration process by which plants help to cleanse all rain water on site. Additional native California plants exist throughout the ten-acre parcel of land to conserve water, provide shade canopy, and unify the area’s character.
Related Stories
| Dec 28, 2014
AIA course: Enhancing interior comfort while improving overall building efficacy
Providing more comfortable conditions to building occupants has become a top priority in today’s interior designs. This course is worth 1.0 AIA LU/HSW.
| Nov 26, 2014
U.S. Steel decides to stay in Pittsburgh, plans new HQ near Penguins arena
The giant steelmaker has agreed to move into a new headquarters that is slated to be part of a major redevelopment.
| Oct 16, 2014
Perkins+Will white paper examines alternatives to flame retardant building materials
The white paper includes a list of 193 flame retardants, including 29 discovered in building and household products, 50 found in the indoor environment, and 33 in human blood, milk, and tissues.
| Oct 12, 2014
AIA 2030 commitment: Five years on, are we any closer to net-zero?
This year marks the fifth anniversary of the American Institute of Architects’ effort to have architecture firms voluntarily pledge net-zero energy design for all their buildings by 2030.
| Sep 24, 2014
Architecture billings see continued strength, led by institutional sector
On the heels of recording its strongest pace of growth since 2007, there continues to be an increasing level of demand for design services signaled in the latest Architecture Billings Index.
| Sep 22, 2014
4 keys to effective post-occupancy evaluations
Perkins+Will's Janice Barnes covers the four steps that designers should take to create POEs that provide design direction and measure design effectiveness.
| Sep 22, 2014
Sound selections: 12 great choices for ceilings and acoustical walls
From metal mesh panels to concealed-suspension ceilings, here's our roundup of the latest acoustical ceiling and wall products.
| Sep 15, 2014
Ranked: Top international AEC firms [2014 Giants 300 Report]
Parsons Brinckerhoff, Gensler, and Jacobs top BD+C's rankings of U.S.-based design and construction firms with the most revenue from international projects, as reported in the 2014 Giants 300 Report.
| Sep 9, 2014
Using Facebook to transform workplace design
As part of our ongoing studies of how building design influences human behavior in today’s social media-driven world, HOK’s workplace strategists had an idea: Leverage the power of social media to collect data about how people feel about their workplaces and the type of spaces they need to succeed.
