Bayfront Park is a dynamic 5.5-acre park along the evolving eastern edge of Mission Bay in San Francisco. With its palette of rugged and reclaimed materials, Bayfront Park reconnects present-day Mission Bay to its maritime history. Mission Bay has been in a period of planning and rapid development since the early 2000s. As the last piece of a network of open spaces and trails envisioning a new way of engaging the Eastern Waterfront from Bayview-Hunters Point to the Embarcadero, Bayfront Park is integral to the cultural renaissance of Mission Bay.

Throughout the design process, the team met extensively with local community and stakeholder groups to develop a set of programmatic and design goals that helped guide the development of the park. Bayfront Park is intentionally flexible, creating many possibilities for group gathering, recreation, and tranquility along the waterfront as well as a series of walking and biking trails. Bayfront Green is a new flexible lawn space, while the promontory and stepped terraces feature immersive garden spaces with views out to the water and back to the city skyline. The 16th Street Plaza provides picnic tables and BBQs, and shade pavilions made of reclaimed steel. The Porch is a converging wooden boardwalk with built-in seating oriented toward the water. New opportunities to access the water, capitalizing on the park’s expansive bay and city views have been incorporated through a series of stepped terraces, immersive overlooks and a steel observation deck that cantilevers over the water’s edge.

Bayfront Park celebrates material reuse and a sense of place along the evolving waterfront. The project is the largest recipient of the Oakland Museum of California’s Bay Bridge Steel Program. Steel elements from the now-demolished eastern span of the bridge are incorporated throughout the park as sculptural features: vertical steel elements animate the 16th Street Plaza and act as supports for a pair of shade structures, repurposed beams are used as informal seating elements along the waterfront and plaza, and as part of the observation deck.

Rip rap is used throughout the park to bring the rugged waterfront language into the site through a series of terraces and exuberant bioretention garden edges. In an innovative treatment of a common material for waterfront infrastructure, rip rap was also sliced and installed as pavers at a series of overlooks along the Bay Trail. Fragments of the historic seawall found at nearby Pierpont Lane were saved from being off-hauled and have now become informal seating that speaks to the history of the changing shoreline in Mission Bay.

The planting approach at Bayfront Park reflects the gradient of site conditions from the developed urban edge to the marine edge of the bay. The designers established a series of plant communities ranging from coastal scrub along the bay to an upland coastal prairie palette, to bioretention gardens that manage stormwater runoff and address flooding and sea level rise. This mix of native and adapted planting supports habitat for birds and pollinators throughout the seasons.

A new open space for the public to gather, explore, play, lounge, and picnic along the waterfront in San Francisco, Bayfront Park demonstrates how a highly crafted communal space can serve a diverse public and reinforce a sense of place. Bayfront Park, one of the key links in the regional Bay Trail, is a democratic and iconic public space that represents the dynamism and optimism of San Francisco.

Credits –
Civil: Lotus Water
Structural, Electrical & Utilities: GHD
Geotechnical: Langan
Irrigation: Brookwater
Contractor: Hoseley
Photographer: Marion Brenner

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