I was educated as an architect, but most of my best design lessons have been derived from daily life in the built environment.  Perhaps the strongest influence on my aesthetic sense is having lived in a house designed by William Wurster for the last thirty-five years. My admiration for the design of the house grows almost on a daily basis as details of it continue to attract my attention.  Here are a few examples:

View of the house and garden from the southeast looking toward the Bay

Siting is one of the most important factors in residential design.  Our house is located on a property in the Berkeley Hills that is blessed with a panoramic view of the Bay. But the view did not drive Wurster’s design.  He sited the house so that the long elevation of what is essentially a two story, rectilinear box faces east, not west to the Bay view.  This orientation gives all of the interior rooms exposure to a side garden and the morning sun. Selected spaces, the living room/dining room and master bedroom, have direct views to the Bay.  After only a season of living in the house with two sons and dogs, we realized the brilliance of the siting.

We continue to be drawn outdoors for leisure time in the yard, the dramatic vistas, and the eastern exposure.  The kitchen, living room/dining room and three upstairs bedrooms all have extra wide doors that open to the garden or to second floor balconies facing the garden.  The long elevation has minimal exposure to the harsh winds and rains that blow from the Bay. On a sunny morning when we are sitting outside the kitchen at a table on the garden patio, we are reminded how shortsighted it would have been to let the house divide such a beautiful green place into a front yard facing the bay and a back yard facing, well, the back yard.  The house is a primary lesson in what could be called, Architecture is About Buildings and their Context.

The shed roof creates a sense of generous space while providing perfect drainage.

A roof is not just a cover to keep out the weather.  It is a major component of the form of a building and one whose effect can be experienced even from the inside.  Our house is documented as being Wurster’s first use of the shed roof for a residential building.  In addition to simplifying the exterior form of the house while adding a bit of reference to a California farm building, the shed roof allows the interior rooms it covers to be more than little or mid-sized boxes.  The floor to ceiling height of the ground level rooms is approximately nine feet, adding an even more generous sense of space to the open plan layout.  The second floor rooms have a floor to ceiling height at the low side of the roof of approximately six-feet eight inches.  The shed roof allows this height to increase to nine feet or more on the opposite side of the room.

The shed roof is another example of the functional simplicity of Wurster’s design aesthetic.  It provides a very cost effective and simple roofing system.  The framing does not require special bracing given the width of the house; the pitch allows easy drainage; and the finish material can be tar and gravel as on a flat roof.  A shed roof can easily be built to overhang and shelter exterior doorways.  Finally, it has proved much more enduring and alluring to live with over time than the double-pitched version, which requires higher maintenance.  Thus the roof form is critical, both aesthetically and functionally.

From taking tours of other Wurster designed houses, I have observed that he typically made creative use of circulation elements such as stairs to create a dramatic effect in otherwise fairly ordinary plans.  For the thirty-five years we have lived in our Wurster-designed house, I have never ceased to marvel at the beauty created by its simple curved staircase.

View of the curved stairway with the projecting window.

Midway between the first and second floor, a large, projecting window offers a view of distant trees and lights the space. Wurster approximately doubled the wall depth to accommodate this window.  The design permitted simple construction and was relatively inexpensive for such a dramatic custom treatment. Furthermore, it enhanced the experience of going from one level to another.

The upper landing leads to each of the three bedrooms and features a solid bannister overlooking the stairs.  The center point is a rounded element that also is finished to match the plastered walls.  A light hangs over the top of the rounded center and a fixture was chosen that is a simple glazed cylinder.  This stairway is the one dramatic element in an otherwise simple and plain house.  The lesson is that stairways are an opportunity to add spice to the relationship between form and function.

Construction drawing for the projecting stairway window

Every time I look out of the windows in the house, I am stunned by what often appears to be an artful arrangement of what is on the outside.  The single pane opening means that the outdoor space is virtually part of the indoor space. Although  in a time of awareness of energy efficient design, a large, single paned window becomes more problematic–especially when they are made operable–windows and their detailing are of prime importance to the beauty and livability of a home or a workplace.

Single paned windows can frame and organize landscape views

When you are seated inside our house and look out one of the ground floor windows, you can see the ground as well as the horizon and sky.  Wurster designed the window openings on the ground floor to be at a height above the floor level of approximately 27 inches.  The result is a strong visual connection between the outdoor and the indoor space.  There is no sense of floating or of being in a tree.  The design is one of being literally grounded, even in a setting of almost overwhelming long-range views.  The ground plane is made part of the view.  This detail reinforces all aspects of the connection between indoor and outdoor space.

Placing windows near the floor allows sightlines to the ground.

View from Martin Luther King Jr. Street

First floor plans

Second floor plans

When you walk or drive around Berkeley’s flatland neighborhoods, the buildings that line the grid of streets are not likely to attract your attention. A few large turn-of-the-19^th century houses that once occupied outsized lots indicate that this is former farmland. Their neighboring houses are usually modest and were built later when the original parcel of land was subdivided and sold. Neither the lots nor the buildings are large. So unless you are looking for a particular address, you would not pay attention to the passing scene. Nor would anything about the houses attract your gaze

View of the new building

But if you arrive at the intersection of Dwight Way and Martin Luther King, Jr. Way from either of those two streets, a complex of two buildings on the northwest corner is likely to catch your eye. Not because the buildings–the corner one is a renovated two-story structure of circa 1900 and the other is a new 2-story apartment building–have unusual shapes,  but because they seem to have sprouted pieces of cars that either look like strange carbuncles or are recognizable as the windshields of hatchbacks that once belonged to Mazdas and Porsches.

That is what they are. The railings, awnings, fences and gates of the complex’s buildings and grounds are made from discarded car parts and street signs which Karl Wanaselja, one of the design/build firm’s two partners, has avidly collected over a period of years.

Stair railing in the courtyard wrapped with street signs

At the very early age of three Karl was introduced to cars because his parents participated as amateurs in car races, and their brief career imprinted their son with a passion for automobiles that found expression, not in racing, but in preserving and rehabilitating used cars in his architectural career. In his practice, which combines design and construction, he has salvaged parts from over 250 cars for use on 7 different projects.

Easier said than done. Indeed, if he were not a skilled craftsman with an extensive knowledge of materials and a determination to convert these agents of environmental pollution into green materials, we might not detect any morality in his madness. He explains that, “he was motivated to explore using car parts in buildings as a way of merging my seemingly contradictory interests in automobiles and environmental stewardship.”

Karl and his partner and wife, Cate Leger, who is also a staunch environmentalist, have devoted much of their design energies to salvaging and restoring tons of wood and metal for use in their projects.

The Dwight Way complex was the firm’s 30th and most visible in 20 years of residential projects to explore a full range of energy-saving strategies,  but three measures alone saved the two buildings the cost of a year’s worth of energy. They were: using blown-in cellulose insulation made from old telephone books and newspapers instead of fiberglass; substituting 50% of the cement in the concrete with fly ash,  an industrial by-product of burning coal, and leaving the aluminum siding on the existing corner building instead of replacing it with wood or stucco.

In addition to adopting the recognized means of recycling materials and saving energy, Karl and Cate have practiced what I propose calling Artisanal Recycling, a craft-oriented approach to reusing materials and objects. Examples of this kind of recycling in the Dwight Way complex begin with the two gated entrances to the landscaped court between the buildings, which was formerly a large side yard of the corner building. The first gate, visible in the photograph above is a two-tier assemblage of the rear ends of  eight Volvos operated electronically.

The pedestrian gate to the courtyard. Photograph by Scott McGlashan.

The second gate between the two buildings, shown above, is made of recycled street signs. The gate’s design raises the issue of how this reuse, which completely changed the signs’ original function, should be classified.

An assessment of the original function of these standard-issue signs makes it clear that information, not wit, was their message. That their color, format, and font are repeated without variation except for the length determined by the words, reassures those traveling in cars on these roads that the sign they see some distance ahead, but cannot read, will give them the information they need to follow their chosen route. Were they upended, as these signs are, their function would be destroyed. Yet we are entertained by this change of meaning which, under other circumstance, could be labeled vandalism and a violation of the law.

Above, the courtyard’s interior. The stair railing to the upper floor, shown above, is wrapped with street signs. Photograph by Cesar Rubio.

Projecting from the corner of the second floor is a carbuncular bay window clad in aluminum plates which, it turns out, are salvaged street signs which have been flipped over. Its underside is clad with California highway signs. Two other such bay windows projects from the rear corners of the building. The roof overhang is also composed of reversed aluminum street signs and define a balcony railing above a shallow bay on the building’s south side. Mazda and Porsche glass hatchbacks were used on the exterior and interior. Shown below is a Porsche rear window converted to an awning above the entrance to the apartment building.

Below it is a view of part of an interior stair railing on the second floor level, which also shows the connection of the window to the floor.

While the mass-produced articles that make up much of the content of our daily lives may seem to have only the one use determined by the time of their creation, their life span is even more determined by our only seeing them through the lens that led to their creation. If they cannot surprise us by suggesting other uses, they must be replaced by new devices while the previous ones are consigned to the scrap heap. Today’s challenge is to cleanse the windows and doors of our perception and reanimate these artifacts, as Leger Wanaselja have done.

Unless otherwise noted, the photographs are by Leger Wanasalja Architects.

When we look at architectural ornament in the categories of heraldry and emblems, we  find  abstract compositions that no longer imply a physical connection, as was the case with human, animal, and bird forms. Instead, we see a miscellany of items: plums, crowns, flowers, shields, weapons, and other things associated with aristocracy.  Such things make up the vocabulary of heraldry, which  was systematically established throughout Europe in the twelfth century to meet the demand for emblems of respectability and  proclaim the importance of feudal families. Tracing family genealogies  and devising coats of arms were its principle tasks.

Over time the aristocracy of business and commerce subsumed that of humans. Companies and corporations commissioned heraldic crests emblazoned on shields, which were displayed on the buildings they owned and occupied.

Although company logos have now replaced heraldic crests, we can still find examples of the old-fasioned heraldry on pre-modern buildings. The  terra cotta plaque shown below, which appears on a building at 101 The Embarcadero, is an example of such heraldry. The client is not identified, but the decorative elements imply prestige, even royalty, as in the fleur-de-lis, the royal lilly of France.

101 The Embarcadero, San Francisco.

Below, the “M” for Matson, an internationally known shipping line, is rendered in rope. The facade of the company building at 216 Market Street building is embellished with nautical symbols such as anchors, dolphins, and shells. Portraits of the Matson steamships appear in cartouches.

216 Market Street, San Francisco.

The bronze plaque on the building at 233 Sansome Street is an heraldic tribute to the firemen who may have occupied the building.

233 Sansome Street, San Francisco.

The former Pacific Telephone and Telegraph Company building of 1925, designed by Timothy Pflueger, has a  bell framed in a rondel suspended above staff-like elements often used in heraldry as symbols of authority.

134-140 New Montgomery St, San Francisco.

The bell was modeled by the sculptor Pio Oscar Tognelli who was employed by the Gladding McBean terra cotta manufacturing company in Lincoln, California. This factory produced terra cotta ornament for buildings, particularly on the west coast,  from the late 19^th through the first decades of the 20^th century. The Gladding McBean company’s history traces the growing popularity of terra cotta.

The factory’s location in the small city of Lincoln followed the discovery nearby of an extensive deposit of pure white kaolin clay,  which partners Charles Gladding,  Peter McGill McBean,  and George Chambers leased from the owner, George Towle,  in 1875 for the production of vitrified  sewer pipe. The dramatic growth of west coast cities in the latter part of the 19^th century gave this product a bright future.

A two-story headquarters building was constructed in 1884, the year the company began production of architectural  ornament,  to advertise terra cotta’s advantages over other materials such as stone. It once stood at 1358 Market Street in San Francisco but is long gone.

Terra Cotta was less expensive to use for architectural purposes than stone for several reasons. It could be glazed  and textured to mimic different  kinds of the more costly material  from warm buff-colored sandstone to cool gray granite. And because terra cotta was lighter than stone the amount of structural steel needed for the building frame could be reduced, which also lower costs.

Architects  favored terra cotta because their designs could be modeled at full scale and reworked,  if necessary,  before they were cast. Despite the need for skilled labor to make the molds, once made, these could be reused more or less indefinitely. The standardization provided by the use of molds guaranteed accuracy in repeated ornament,  saved money through speedy execution,  and avoided the need for site work by expensive skilled labor.

To reduce costs further, it was common practice to construct tall buildings using stone on the ground floor and perhaps the second and third floors if they were visible from the street. But the upper floors were often clad in terra cotta or cast stone colored and textured to imitate the  stone used below.

“Shapes of Clay,” a company publication, described the process by which an architecct’s drawing was turned into reality.  In the factory drafting room, the drawing was keyed to show the location of the ornament. A shop drawing was then made following the architect’s  drawing and submitted to the architect for approval. Full size working drawings were made with allowance for shrinkage, and every piece was scheduled. At the factory, staff artists modeled the ornament in clay and plaster. After approval by the architect–often by means of photographs taken in the shop—the model was sent to the plaster shop where final molds were made. The publication recognized the creative efforts of the staff sculptors, adding that they were always under the supervision of the architect.

The lion and the unicorn appear on either side of the clock above the entrance to the former Royal Globe Insurance Company’s building of 1907 at 201 Sansome Street. They are part of a British coat of arms used here because the company was based in London. The lion’s solar stateliness is paired with the unicorn’s lunar purity to signify the union of opposites. The purity symbolized by the unicorn’s single horn explains its otherwise mysterious association with the Virgin Mary and monastic life.

201 Sansome Street, San Francisco.

A mythical beast, the unicorn has the head and body of a horse, the tail of a lion, the legs and hoofs of a stag, and a twisted horn in the center of its forehead. In this composite form the unicorn was revered in Egyptian, Greco-Roman, Hebrew, Sumero-Semitic, and Chinese cosmologies.

245 Market Street, San Francisco.

The ram, another sun symbol, also appeared in many cultures. As Aries, the first sign of the zodiac, the ram signified the beginning of a cycle or process of creation. A symbol of the masculine generative force, the ram was mainly a sacrificial animal. Its horns signified solar and lunar power, honor, and abundance. The ram shown here, looking out through the branches of a California live oak, is a High Sierra bighorn sheep. It appears on the wall of a Pacific Gas & Electric Company building 245 Market Street in San Francisco

The bull and the ox share many attributes. Both were sacrificed during harvest rituals to insure the renewal of the earth and its powers. The sculpted skulls of oxen, called bucranes, were decorated with garlands of fruit and flowers. Featured in the friezes of Doric temples, they represented the real heads of the sacrificed animals that were hung on the temples during the seasonal rites.  One wonders if their later use, as seen below on the Kohl building at 400 Montgomery Street, was intended as a reminder of the ancient rituals carried out to create wealth and prosperity.

400 Montgomery Street, San Francisco.

The grizzly bear, a California state symbol, is often represented but not always in a ferocious state. Indeed, the bear shown below above the entrance to the former Pacific Gas & Electric Company building at 245 Market Street, who peers down through sheaves of grain and produce grown in the state seems more worried than threatening.

245 Market Street, San Francisco.

The next bear, stepping easily over San Francisco’s skyline in a rondel on the building at 315 Market Street, is clearly a threat.

315 Market Street, San Francisco.

1000 Van Ness Avenue, San Francisco.

This affable bear atop his column in front of a former Cadillac showroom at 1000 Van Ness Avenue seems to be welcoming the public with a smile.

University of California’s College of Agriculture, Berkeley.

Located on the UC Berkeley campus, Hilgard Hall was built in 1917-1918 to house the University of California’s College of Agriculture. Designed by John Galen Howard, the building was richly decorated with friezes of sgraffito–scratch in Italian–created by applying two coats of plaster in contrasting colors and scratching through the top layer to create a very shallow relief with a colored background. The friezes celebrate the rewards of tilling the earth and feature medallions framing depictions of barnyard animals that appear above swags laden with the products of agriculture.

Like humans, buildings talk about themselves, but architectural detail, or ornament, once so common, is no longer used around doors and windows, sections of walls inside and out, ceilings, etc., or even understood. Modernism replaced ornament with a different vocabulary of details involving straight lines, right angles, and clean edges. Still, since we admire buildings from the time when ornament was popular, it seems that revealing the meaning of decorative motifs would broaden our understanding of what they are trying to tell us and increase out pleasure in passing by them. They contribute to the urban texture of our cities.

Architectural Ornament Collage by Sally Woodbridge

The collage above is composed of details of well known buildings in San Francisco, which you may not recognize because. as fragments taken out of context, they don’t really belong together. Their locations are indicated by numbers; some may be neighbors.

But what is architectural detail? The word “detail” is rooted in the French word “tailler,” “to cut” plus the “de,” which means “apart.” So details are small, secondary, or accessory parts of larger things. Ornamental details such as wreaths, garlands of fruit and flowers, medallions with humans heads, continuous bands of waves or chevrons, lion heads, scrolled leaves, and varied moldings do not appear randomly on buildings; they are deliberately placed. They mark the location of floors, define edges, and call attention to windows and doors.

The design of buildings has much in common with that of clothes. The holes cut in fabric for the head, arms, and legs have always offered opportunities for decoration. The various approaches to cutting cloth, making seams and finishing edges have helped to create distinctive styles. In both clothing and architecture the pendulum of fashion swings back and forth between the lavish and the simple. Indeed, it seems that human beings are driven to ornamenting whatever they design and produce.

Before written characters morphed into signs that represent sounds, much early writing was pictorial. Today we have logos, short for logograms, that are modern, often decorative, hieroglyphs. The $ sign is perhaps our most familiar symbol. Many motifs used in architectural ornament are highly compressed visual abstractions like logos that would take up too much space if they were fully explained.

Despite the many learned histories of architectural ornament, new theories about its origin and use continue to appear. Many ornamental motifs we see, for example, on older buildings of our commercial centers were originally symbolic, but their meanings have been lost and the loss of meaning has rendered them mute.

However, the public’s interest in buildings that have the kind of small scale detail and texture that were familiar features of the discontinued historic styles has grown. Were these forms created simply to delight our senses or do they express aspects of the buildings’ structure and its purpose? Or did the use of humans, animals, flowers, fruit, and scenes have a didactic purpose?

This article is not intended to be another learned history of architectural ornament. Its purpose is to provide a context for increasing our appreciation of the buildings that furnish out urban environment.

The text is divided into the following chapters:

1. HUMAN FORMS,
2. ANIMAL and BIRD FORMS,
3. HERALDRY and EMBLEMS,
4. PLANT FORMS, and the most decorated features of buildings:
5. ROOFS, COLUMNS, WINDOWS and DOORS.

Irreparable damage to a building in Kobe by the 1990 earthquake

Saving people’s lives from the disastrous results of major earthquakes is the most important part of California’s building codes, as indeed it should be. But what about saving the lives of buildings?

We bring this subject up because an extreme seismic event is likely to damage buildings – even those constructed in compliance with the current codes – to such a degree that repairing them would be the equivalent of re-building them. Their destruction and re-building would involve a huge expenditure of energy and carbon emissions which, in effect, would cancel whatever energy-saving measures had been used in their construction and operation.

What is being done to ameliorate this crippling situation? Examples of structural components that could lessen the damage to the building frame and the consequent huge cost of repair are being developed. One such component, the Pin-Fuse Joint, was  patented in 2004 by Mark Sarkisian, structural engineer and director in the firm SOM.

A model of the Pin-Fuse Joint

The Pin-Fuse Joint operates in much the same way as some joints in the human frame; for example, the movement of the shoulder joint, as  shown in the drawing below.

Pin-Fuse Joint comparison.

As shown above, the horizontal steel beams end in a circular plate that connects to the steel of the associated columns within the moment-resisting frame. The  columns connect the curved steel end plates. A steel pin or hollow steel pipe in the center of the moment-frame beam provides a well-defined rotation point. Under typical conditions including wind and moderate seismic events, the joint remains fixed if the exterior forces do not overcome the friction resistance provided between the curved end plates. In an extreme event, the plate is designed to rotate around the pin joint, with the slip-critical bolts sliding in long-slotted holes in the curved end plates. With this slip, rotation is allowed, energy dissipated, and “fusing” occurs.

Pin-Fuse Joint comparison. All pictures and drawings appear courtesy of SOM.

The rotation of the Pin-Fuse Joint during extreme seismic events, depicted above, occurs sequentially in designated locations within the frame. As the slip occurs, the building frame is softened. The dynamic characteristics of the frame are altered so that smaller forces are attracted to the frame and deformations are reduced. After the seismic event, the elastic frame finds its pre-earthquake position. The brass shim located between the curved steel plates provides the predictable coefficient of friction (0.4) required to determine the onset of slip and enables the bolts to maintain their tension with Belleview washers from the original tightening. The joints re-establish their fixity after the earthquake.

Given the threat of catastrophic earthquakes in the Bay Area and other heavily populated centers of our state one would think that this and other such eminently useful structural components would be recognized by building codes. But this has not happened.

Surprisingly, the Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design organization, the LEED, which awards building designers by giving points for energy conservation and environmental responsibility, does not recognize environmental impacts related to the construction process. Points are given for using recycled products such as rebar, but there is no overall recognition of the environmental impact of buildings at the time of their construction and throughout their existence.

Furthermore, even though need for reducing the carbon footprint of buildings is something we hear about on a regular basis, the LEED does not address how the issue figures in the overall creation of the structure. What kind of leadership is this?

Pedestrian bridges, often called foot bridges, have been both separate from and part of vehicular bridges. As separate structures they were often constructed in rural or wilderness areas tied to trails rather than roads and were designed with a rustic look.

However, pedestrian bridges associated with urban areas are in demand now and often include bicycle usage. As shown by the three bridges presented here, the reduced scale of urban bridges and their proximity to human beings and nature no longer call for a rustic design.

Despite the fact that these three bridges have gained praise and publicity, the present economic downturn has given them uncertain futures. Hence the title “Bridges to Nowhere—for now.”

THE ST. PATRICK’S ISLAND BRIDGE, CALGARY, CANADA

Rendering of the St. Patrick's Island Bridge, Calgary, Canada

The St. Patrick’s Island Bridge in Calgary was designed in 2009 by Endres Ware* and Ammann & Whitney**, as a gateway to the activities of the island’s Centenary Park. The two-part bridge will also frame views of Calgary and the Rocky Mountains.

The bridges connect to a central platform located where they meet on a mound of earth to be constructed on a site in Centenary Park. The rendering shows a curved path on a mound leading to a ramp lifted up and attached by some of the cables to another land form behind the main pier. The bridges’ low arches, also visible in the rendering, rise just high enough above the underlying flood plain to avoid possible flooding but will not block views of the surroundings.

The bridges’ structure allows the weight of the concrete decks to be carried by a series of main cables running up to the two masts from which backstay cables transfer the deck’s weight back to the ground.

Site plan for St. Patrick's Bridge, Calgary

The two separate cable-stayed bridges, one longer than the other, span the Bow River flowing by the city of Calgary.

Night rendering of St. Patrick's Bridge, Calgary

The masts are bent to reduce their height. The main cables are strung evenly along the length of the masts; the backstay cables, gathered near their tops, are “harped”, meaning that the cables have different lengths.  They cables splay from the top of the mast downward and extend to the adjacent bridge, which reduces the amount of force necessary for their anchorage and allows the bridges to brace each other horizontally.

The bridges appear to bow to their respective destinations, the city and the neighborhoods on the riverbanks. One hopes that users from both places will be able to respond with their feet to their salutes in the not too distant future.

THE LEWIS EATON PEDESTRIAN AND BICYCLE BRIDGE

The Lewis Eaton Bridge

The Lewis Eaton Bridge project began in 2007 and was designed to enable pedestrians and bicycles to cross the San Joaquin River at a location near Fresno west of Highway 41, which is known as “the Yosemite Freeway.” The bridge is part of the efforts of The San Joaquin River Parkway and Conservation Trust to conserve the river, rehabilitate the surrounding land in the 100-year flood plain, and connect the City of Fresno with Madera County. The commission for the project was awarded to landscape architects Patrick and Jane Miller of 2M Associates as the prime and architects and  Endres Ware for the bridge design.

Site plan for the Lewis Eaton Bridge

Visible from Highway 41 as well as from the Fresno and Madera County river bluffs, the bridge will be a landmark for the San Joaquin River Parkway. A multi-use trail located on or parallel to the existing vehicular access road parallel to the river will provide an entry to the bridge.

The soil characteristics of the site were a major challenge to the design process. Although the ground on the west bank is stable the landing is on an island that may wash out in heavy flooding. The dry riverbed is not suitable for a landing because of possible flooding and poor soil conditions.

Diagram of the cable-stayed structure of the Lewis Eaton Bridge

The cables surrounding the bridge deck will provide a sense of enclosure and increase the deck’s stability. They will also create a “gateway” to views of the river by splaying down from the mast to the approach deck which passes under the it.

A gathering place for pedestrians at the bridge access path.

As the ramps descend from the mast to the ground, they will create a small area for people to gather in the tower’s shade .

Although Endres Ware and 2M Associates were commissioned to design the bridge and its surrounding landscape in 2010, a lengthy permit process of five years or more must be concluded before its construction begins. Although the design may change during the time required to gain final approval, one hopes the vision depicted in these images endures.

THE WEST END BRIDGE ADDITION FOR PITTSBURGH, PENNSYLVANIA.

The international competition, sponsored by ALCOA, for the West End Bridge Addition over the Ohio River in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania,  was held in 2006. Endres Ware’s winning design for a new pedestrian crossing to be connected to the historic Bridge over the Ohio River respected the existing bridge while

The West End Bridge and the proposed addition, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.

updating the structure with a dramatic suspended bridge that will improve access for pedestrians, cyclists, and boaters to new recreation and park facilities.

Site plan of the existing bridge framed by the new pedestrian addition.

There are two access points for the bridge. One is a ramp on the bridge addition that runs down to the park ground below. The other is from the historic bridge at its westernmost tower. Pedestrian and bike lanes run from there along the south side of the bridge until they reach the shore.

A Rendering of the new pedestrian addition to the West End Bridge.

For Riverlife, the organization that managed the competition, the West End Bridge project is a top priority, and although funding for the bridge during the slow economy has been tricky, 70% of the work on the surrounding park lands has been completed, and hope for the rest is growing.

Related Links

• Endres Ware, Architects and Engineers
• Ammann & Whitney, Bridge Engineers

Endres Ware provided architecture and engineering services for the site, including the design of a bridge with a 105-foot span for pedestrians and light vehicles that leads to newly restored wetland areas.

Bridge deck plan

The wood deck of the pedestrian bridge, which is cantilevered from a torsion pipe beam that  spans between concrete piers,  is set back from its support so that it gives the illusion that the bridge is floating above the natural landscape below. The sinuous railing provides areas for people to lean out over the creek without blocking the deck.

Along the trails through the park are a maintenance building, public restrooms, and picnic and shade shelters that Endres Ware also designed for Ryder Park. The structures contribute an open framework that allows visitors to pursue the activities of their choice from strolling, jogging and cycling to picnicking. The uniform palette of materials: Ipe wood, also called ironwood, decking, solid concrete bases, steel pipe, and the curvilinear forms shared by the structures promote a perception of the meandering park as a single entity.

References to nature are most obvious in the splayed forms of the two picnic shelters arcing away from each other that suggest wind-blown leaves. Wood slats recalling leaf veins are bound together by upper and lower steel cables that run through them to form the central vein like that of a real leaf.

Picnic shelters plan

The shade structure, shown here in structural drawings and a photograph continue the palette of materials used in the picnic shelters and their skeletal form.

As shown in the photograph above, the 70-acre park projects a festive feeling appropriate to a waterside recreation area.

Doyle Hollis Park

The back elevation of the restroom building

Thoughtful design is not something one expects to find in the restroom buildings of public parks. Usually, one settles for adequate light and ventilation along with functional plumbing. So it is a pleasure to publish a noteworthy example of thoughtful, even elegant, design in the restroom facilities of the City of Emeryville’s Doyle Hollis Park, which opened in September 2009 on 62^nd Street between Doyle and Hollis Streets.

The rectangular concrete building, designed by Endres Ware, an East Bay architecture and engineering firm, incorporates a variety of  sustainable elements including “green roof” made of grass and other vegetation that decreases the rainwater runoff and protects the roofing system. A plumbing chase in the center of the bathroom has a grey water filtration system to receive excess drainage from the roof and enable irrigation for nearby landscaping,

A vines grown on tensions wires strung vertically on the end walls will soften the effect of the concrete, which contains high fly-ash/slag  content and protects the walls from weathering.

Natural light for the interior is provided by skylights, shown above, made of heavy glass tiles like those used in the New York subway stations. They occupy sections of the roofs over the men’s and women’s rooms.

Metal screens above and below the recessed wood section on the back wall allow air to enter the building.  The warm Ipe wood boards compliment the cool concrete, and the handsome stainless steel plumbing fixtures are convincingly durable.

If attention  to materials and details produces the kind of successful design shown here we might wonder why we don’t find it in other equally deserving public parks.  John Ware’s explanation is that the design for such facilities is often such a low budget priority that standard off-the-shelf  designs are used to save time and money.  Fortunately for the Doyle Hollis Park users, Endres Ware’s design process was driven by a desire to improve both the quality of the light and the need for abundant natural ventilation. What a difference these concerns can make!

350 Mission Exterior. All images are by SKIDMORE, OWINGS & MERRILL LLP unless otherwise credited.

Glassy office towers are not new to downtown San Francisco. One of the oldest, the Crown Zellerbach Building at 1 Bush St., was designed in the late 1950s in the newly established San Francisco office of Skidmore Owings & Merrill. Its design referenced the New York firm’s Lever House, built in Manhattan in 1952, which became a landmark of the Modern Movement in the U.S.

Typical post World War II high-rise building Photograph by Morley Baer

The post World War II boom in high-rise office buildings filled US downtowns with boxy skyscrapers encased in largely glazed walls. But over time these towers lost their currency and became stereotyped as “refrigerator cartons.”

Unlike the flat “curtain-walls” of the Modernist office towers, the current glazed exterior cladding for towers, which often have irregular shapes, may be prismatic, as is the case with 350 Mission St. Instead of serving as  mirrors of their surroundings, such buildings become vehicles for refracting and reflecting light. They shimmer and change color with the daily passage of sunlight and shadow. This is good news for us spectators who see the buildings from the street or freeway or the surrounding hills.

350 Mission Curtainwall Detail

The shimmering effect seen in these images is produced by arranging double rows of glass panes so that the panes in the upper rows are slanted inward while the lower panes slant outward, thus producing the appearance of a woven surface that reflects and refracts light.

Parapet atop 350 Mission Street building

The building is crowned with a parapet equipped with a layer of galvanized mesh, cyclone fencing, laced with translucent nylon strips that absorb and diffuse light in a soft way and also enhance the night illumination. The parapet also conceals window-washing equipment and a novel amenity, a rooftop dog-run for the building’s canine population.

The rooftop with the parapet and dog-run