I Kearny
San Francisco, CA
Lightfold is a lobby design for the new One Kearny commercial development at the intersection of Market, Kearny and Geary Streets in the heart of downtown San Francisco, adjacent to the Financial District, and the galleries and museums of the Yerba Buena Arts District.
The project is conceived and funded as architecture as public art. The lobby constitutes the ‘percent for art’ requirement for the building as an integral piece of the architecture. Lightfold was subsequently approved by the SF Arts Commission.
Lightfold is a fully functioning lobby and site-specific installation that draws its concept from the modulated ornamental surfaces found in San Francisco historic buildings such as the turn-of-the-century building that is part the larger One Kearny project. It begins with coffers that traditionally inhabit ceilings in buildings of this era. The installation transforms these “typical” ceiling coffers into an abstracted, folded and luminescent wood chandelier. The same wood veneer is then used as cladding for faceted panels that line the space between the front lobby beneath the coffers and the rear lobby, which connects to the elevators. The form of these facets is generated by unfolding the geometry of the coffers, scaling up the shapes and adapting them to the specific geometry of the angled hallway. Since these facets are opaque, here the configuration of light emanates from around the facet edges. By using both a geometric logic and a wood material that is visually consistent for different parts of the lobby, possessing differing conditions of opacity and translucency, the installation draws together and questions ideas of light, materiality and solidity.*
*text from IwamotoScott
Project Team
Principals in Charge / Lisa Iwamoto, Craig Scott
Design Team / Alan Lu, Ryan Golenberg, Blake Altshuler, Christina Kaneva, Manuel Diaz
San Francisco, CA
Lightfold is a lobby design for the new One Kearny commercial development at the intersection of Market, Kearny and Geary Streets in the heart of downtown San Francisco, adjacent to the Financial District, and the galleries and museums of the Yerba Buena Arts District.
The project is conceived and funded as architecture as public art. The lobby constitutes the ‘percent for art’ requirement for the building as an integral piece of the architecture. Lightfold was subsequently approved by the SF Arts Commission.
Lightfold is a fully functioning lobby and site-specific installation that draws its concept from the modulated ornamental surfaces found in San Francisco historic buildings such as the turn-of-the-century building that is part the larger One Kearny project. It begins with coffers that traditionally inhabit ceilings in buildings of this era. The installation transforms these “typical” ceiling coffers into an abstracted, folded and luminescent wood chandelier. The same wood veneer is then used as cladding for faceted panels that line the space between the front lobby beneath the coffers and the rear lobby, which connects to the elevators. The form of these facets is generated by unfolding the geometry of the coffers, scaling up the shapes and adapting them to the specific geometry of the angled hallway. Since these facets are opaque, here the configuration of light emanates from around the facet edges. By using both a geometric logic and a wood material that is visually consistent for different parts of the lobby, possessing differing conditions of opacity and translucency, the installation draws together and questions ideas of light, materiality and solidity.*
*text from IwamotoScott
Project Team
Principals in Charge / Lisa Iwamoto, Craig Scott
Design Team / Alan Lu, Ryan Golenberg, Blake Altshuler, Christina Kaneva, Manuel Diaz