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AIA presentation urges using SoMa's lanes, corners and 'urban fabric' to guide growth
Summary
At a joint San Francisco Planning and Historic Preservation Commission meeting, AIA San Francisco and designer Renee Chow urged officials to focus on SoMa's lanes, alleys and fine-grain lots to preserve neighborhood identity amid growth, while commissioners debated lot aggregation, traffic patterns and tools for protecting affordability.
Renee Chow, founding principal of Studio Urbis and an associate professor at the University of California, Berkeley, told a joint meeting of the San Francisco Planning Commission and Historic Preservation Commission on July 19, 2012, that the task for civic leaders is to “balance the relations between contemporary architecture and the historic character of neighborhoods.”
Chow framed South of Market (SoMa) as a district defined less by uniform building type than by a composite urban fabric: a network of lanes, varying lot sizes and a mix of residential enclaves and large commercial parcels. She urged officials to assess projects not only on appearance but on performance—how a building contributes to urban identity, legibility and the life of lanes and alleys. “These lanes are opportunities to intensify the identity of SoMa,” Chow said,…
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