Opt[in]
YEAR: 2016
FIRM: Restart [your city]
TYPE: Competition
LOCATION: San Francisco, CA, USA
CLIENT: Eleven Magazine
COLLABORATORS: Lavamae, Karla Diaz
AWARDS: Honorable Mention
_Description
Opt[in] is a response to the socio-economic reality of the Tenderloin or “TL” neighborhood in San Francisco by using social capital as the driving force. Our emergent, community-based model aimed to activate residents of the TL through the revitalization and retrofitting of existing infrastructure in an effort to preserve San Francisco’s historic urban fabric. Similar to a college campus, we proposed a one card system that connects residents to all basic services and amenities [food, shelter, healthcare + sanitation] within their chosen neighborhood block. Our goal was to create a diverse social ecosystem where all residents can thrive.
Opt[in] offers the unique opportunity for people to congregate, learn, share, + create together in the public realm. We aim to facilitate a democratic process of reshaping and activating public spaces with vibrant community-based participatory design. Central to this approach is knowledge in the making and public space stewardship, which emphasizes shared experience, collective creation, and ownership. As a resident of Opt[in], one becomes the curator of the public realm while facilitating the organic, long-term growth of the Tenderloin.
_The Competition Brief
Eleven Magazine's San Francisco 2016 Design Competition asked students and professionals to develop a strategy for the regeneration of San Francisco’s Tenderloin district. The neighborhood, which sits in the heart of one of the world’s most famous cities, is today regarded as one of the most distressed neighborhoods in the USA. This competition called for action and invited the international creative community to step-up to the challenge and reimagine ways of turning the Tenderloin into a model district of the future.
_Jury's Comments
‘Opt[IN]’ responds to the current socio-economic problematics present in the Tenderloin by developing a coherent regenerative strategy that is aimed at creating a diverse social ecosystem where all residents can thrive. “Opt[in] perpetuates a community-driven platform for sustainable urban growth”, explain the design team. The outcome is a masterplan designed to enrich the Tenderloin by gradually retrofitting and redeveloping existing infrastructure, while at the same time focusing on investing in social capital and an improved quality of the built environment. The end result is a masterplan which has a very strong civic concern, and which is designed specifically to counteract the effects of Gentrification, such as the displacement of local population and a search for a new manufactured identity.
The jury enjoyed this proposal and chose it as one of their Honorable Mentions due to its ambition and methodical care the design team took in developing a coherent masterplan which the jury can imagine successful in real-life policy making towards a new regenerative model for the Tenderloin.