potrero view
Photo by Mike Brungardt

Photo by Mike Brungardt

Temporary planters and street art adorn the new Showplace Triangle Park.

November 2009

Form and Function Find a Home at Showplace Triangle Park

By Mike Brungardt

Stop, relax, and play are more than just words you’ll find painted on the pavement at the new Showplace Triangle Park, located at the intersection of Wisconsin, 8th and 16th streets.  They’re the reason this former section of road has been reclaimed as a gathering place.  Visitors to this unique pocket park will find themselves surrounded by recycled and repurposed materials, such as granite benches that once graced Market Street but had found their way into storage.  The ceramic planters that serve as make-shift walls are never-used sewer pipes.  Large trash dumpsters are deployed as planters for trees and shrubs.  “It is a living laboratory of urban design,” said John Bella, co-director of Rebar Studio, which donated its design and construction management to the project.  The “idea is to make it public space.  Anyone who wants to can come and sit on the grass or on the granite benches and enjoy it,” he said.  

The park is both a place for recreation and a piece of art.  From the colorful murals painted on the planters to the energetic designs stenciled into the paved surfaces, Bella calls the spot “user generated urbanism and participatory public art.”  Rebar integrated the advertising billboard which looms overhead into the design of the space by adding a chain sculpture to the structure.  The chains not only soften the billboard’s hard lines, they also provide texture, as the chains move rhythmically in the San Francisco wind.

Neighboring Wolfe’s Espresso Bar and Axis Café make the park a great place to meet friends for lunch or to enjoy a cup of coffee.  In an effort to draw people to the space and increase it’s usability, Rebar will soon be adding moveable chairs which can be rearranged to accommodate different sized groups.  The park is collaboratively managed by the California College of Art, the Bureau of Urban Forestry, Wolfe’s Espresso Bar, and Axis Café, who make sure that the plantings are watered and the soon to be movable chairs are taken in each night.  

The Showplace Triangle Park joins the Castro Commons, located at the intersection of 17th, Castro and Market streets, and Guerrero Park, located at the intersection of San Jose Avenue and Guerrero Street, as part of the Pavement to Parks initiative, which is being implemented by the Mayor’s Office, Department of Public Works, Planning Department, and Municipal Transportation Agency.  The initiative’s goal is to turn excessively wide streets and wasted space at intersections into places of public recreation.  The initiative is based on a similar model successfully pioneered by New York City.      

Pavement to Parks is an experiment.  The City has intentionally used moveable design elements so that a park’s look and use can be changed based on community feedback and the space’s popularity.  The City will review each of the parks to consider changes, and to determine whether there’s enough interest to make them permanent, with an emphasis on park usage rates and community involvement.  Showplace Triangle Park visitors are encouraged to e-mail the Planning Department, sfpavementtoparks@sfgov.org, with their thoughts about the space, what they’d like to see changed, and suggestions for future sites where paved spaces can be transformed into public parks.


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