San Francisco As It Should Be

If you happen to be near Los Angeles this weekend, I’ll be giving a 40-45 minute talk this Saturday at the A+D Museum as part of a day-long event organized by Gensler – designers of the tallest building in China, which began construction last week in Shanghai.

The theme for the day is Design Process Innovation, and my own talk is called “San Francisco As It Should Be” – applying many of the ideas that have been found here on BLDGBLOG over the past few years to the (ironically complacent) city where I now live. From tectonic self-engineering to whole-city sound design, via guerrilla gardening, subterranean mobile libraries, and vertical film clouds, among many other ideas and projects, from Fritz Haeg to Sarah Ross to Steve Lambert and Packard Jennings, I’ll be taking a look at a range of ways to alter the face and experience of the city.
The event lasts from 10am-5:30pm, and I’ll be one of the final keynote addresses – from 3-4pm, I believe. It’s not free, unfortunately, but student discounts are available.
The other participants include some really fantastic people, including Scott Robertson of Design Studio Press; the awesome Tali Krakowsky from Imaginary Forces – from whom you’ll soon hear more when I post BLDGBLOG’s long (and very long-delayed) interview with the principals of that firm; Frances Anderton, a colleague of mine at Dwell and host of KCRW’s weekly radio show DnA; Sam Lubell of The Architect’s Newspaper; and many, many, many more.
So if you’re in town and need something to think about, consider stopping by. Here’s a map – and you can read a bit more about it here, with tickets available for purchase here.
If you do make it out, come up and introduce yourself as I’d love to say hello.