Treasure Island, “Call Me Home”, by Maria Ramirez Perez and Elida Zavala
Apocalypse Now! project for the post-retail city
Class: Advanced Studio MAAD Urban Works, MArch and BArch, California College of the Arts, Architecture Division
Date: Spring 2020
Instructors: Christina Cho and Christopher Roach
This advanced urban studio will investigate the “Retail Apocalypse” as both an opportunity to rethink current models of commercial environments and their relationship to the public sphere, as well as an alibi to question contemporary preconceptions in urban planning and real estate that have shaped the footprint of the modern city. By focusing on the commercial corridor as a site for the production and support of public life, this studio attempts to answer the question: what do we want the ground floor of our city to be? Our response will emerge from an investigation of global retail complexes, analyzed through the lenses of property, governance, finance, infrastructure, technology and physical form. Ultimately, the studio will focus on producing a “project for the city” by applying and adapting these models to the conditions of a selection of large development sites in San Francisco.