Client: Market Street Prototyping Festival

Overview

“Adaptive Playscapes” is an offering to the urban public by its diverse youth. Given its mobility and structure, it will flex between being highly intimate and highly public, depending on the urban context in which it is deployed. It seeks to inspire delight, exploration, and engagement. We envision that this offering will connect the urban public with the city in an unexpected way, that brings delight and calls attention to the adjacent urban landscape, and their scale within it.

Goals

“Adaptive Playscapes” will be designed and fabricated by a team of middle school-aged artists, guided through the process by design and fabrication professionals. These artists will come from three Bay Area school communities located within 1.5mi of the Ferry Building, such as The Youth Chance High School (at-risk youth), Notre Dame des Victoires or St. Mary’s School (both Catholic prep schools), Fusion Academy (alternative private school), or Bessie Carmichael School (Filipino public school). They will contribute their own perspective and experience on Market Street, and gather perspectives from local stakeholders on their understanding and vision for the area, as well as researching Market Street’s past.

Process

Industrial and Interior Design students taking part in an ENGAGE seminar led by Gregory Hurcomb (Architecture/Interior Design faculty) worked with the nonprofit KIDMob and local middle school students to build Adaptive Playscapes, their vision of a collaborative and interactive modular—and mobile—play space. The result was a popular stop for the Market Street Prototyping festival visitors, who hopped, bounced, and balanced on the colorful structures.

Additional Information

The design and fabrication team will engage with Market Street’s residents, local businesses, and other users throughout the process, and particularly at four points: - They will conduct stakeholder interviews and some historical research on Market Street prior to any design work