Pier 70

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Brookfield Properties

Port of San Francisco

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Pier 70

Pier 70 in San Francisco is the winner of a 2019 Preservation Design Award in the Cultural Resource Studies category. Award recipients are selected by a jury of top professionals in the fields of architecture, engineering, planning, and history, as well as renowned architecture critics and journalists. In making their decision the jury noted the report’s comprehensive approach to problems facing preservation, stating, “the report tackles lots of issues; it’s ambitious, it’s groundbreaking. This works at addressing the issues of what to do with places that have historic structures and need infill. It’s less about the preservation of the historic resources, and more about the infill and the public spaces. It’s a very ambitious tool to try and encourage the right kind of compatible infill. It’s going to be fascinating to see the next 10 years as projects emerge.”

The Award will be presented on Friday, October 18, 2019 at a gala dinner and awards ceremony at the InterContinental Mark Hopkins in San Francisco. Tickets and sponsorship options are available at californiapreservation.org/awards.

About this project

Pier 70 is a place that has been obscured over time. Once a hub of industry and craftsmanship, today the level of activity has greatly declined. Pier 70, as shown in the Design for Development, reintegrates the site into the fabric of San Francisco, creating an active, sustainable neighborhood that pays homage to its industrial past. The project will transform a waterfront that has been inaccessible for over a century into a creative cultural district. New buildings will complement the industrial setting in size, scale and material. Historic buildings will be artfully repurposed to house new uses, including local manufacturing. A “mosaic” of overlapping public spaces inspired by the historic arrangement of the site will provide new life to the district. This mixed-use model of thoughtful infill urban growth will return public access to this portion of the waterfront and restore an important piece of national industrial history.

The Union Iron Works (UIW) Historic District tells the story of the American steel hull shipbuilding industry from the late nineteenth century through World War II. As California’s pioneering iron works, the district’s early history coincides with the shift from wood to iron shipbuilding. By opening the first steel shipyard on the West Coast in 1884, UIW established a national steel hull shipbuilding industry. Over the next three decades, the shipyard played an integral role in the United States government’s efforts to increase naval resources and bolster the nation’s image as an international military power. By World War I, the yard stood at the center of the shipbuilding industry on the West Coast. A crew of mostly skilled laborers produced dozens of warships and submarines that resulted in the United States’ overwhelming success in World War I. The combination of a skilled labor force and the yard’s ability to build or repair all ships afloat kept it open during the lean interwar years. As World War II approached, UIW participated in the unprecedented military build-up occurring across the country. The World War II development resulted in an increase in unskilled workers and mass production. At the same time, ship repair and naval contracts completed by the yard’s skilled laborers made a significant contribution to the war, and by maintaining many of the older buildings, produced UIW’s unique collection of buildings from all periods of the United States’ steel shipbuilding industry.

Photos © Brookfield Properties + SITELAB urban studio. Plan image © Brookfield Properties + SITELAB urban studio / James Corner Field Operations.