TraceSF is an online journal that critically explores San Francisco Bay Area design, culture, and urbanism. Featuring contributions in different media from a diverse group of designers, artists, photographers, and thinkers, TraceSF pursues topics that often fly beneath the radar. It does so as an independent forum, organized for its contributors out of a shared desire for greater urbanity in San Francisco and the region.

 

Yosh Asato, Yukiko Bowman, Brad Leibin, and John Parman are the founding editors of TraceSF. Kenneth Caldwell, Mallory Cusenbery, and Jeremy Mende have helped us. Web developer Jonathan Butterick tailored WordPress’s Tanzaku template for our needs.

 

 

 

 

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Ispirazione

In amber morning light I boarded a vaporetto and floated down Venice’s Grand Canal. Bit of a switch from Dallas.

 

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2015.02.22 4:57pm
Filed under: Architecture, Field Notes, Tags: , , ,

The Art of Assemblage

 

“Nature uses only the longest threads to weave her patterns, so that each small piece of her fabric reveals the organization of the entire tapestry.”

 

-Richard P. Feynman

 

We enter a fabric womb, a cave-like space of soft stalactites that brush against us, shifting and pooling us into groups. We’ve stumbled into the world that is Give, an installation by artists Bird Feliciano and Juliana Raimondi.

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2015.02.03 11:03am
Filed under: Art, Events, Theory, Visual work, Tags: , , , , , , ,

Contributor Profile: Arianne Gelardin and Jacob Palmer

 

Arianne Gelardin and Jacob Palmer are co-curators for StoreFrontLab‘s Season 2: City Making Series.

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2015.02.02 9:49pm
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Invisible Urbanism

Ian Quate at the opening of the summit. (Photo: John Parman)

How do you make yourself at home in a cauldron filled with demons? I’m quoting the founder of Soto Zen, but the question was also posed at a recent San Francisco summit. > Read More

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2015.01.18 11:17am
Filed under: Ecology, Economics, Events, Landscape, Planning, Policy, Politics, Technology, Tags: , , , , , , , ,

Contributor Profile: Leah Nichols

 

Leah Nichols is a San Francisco-based urban designer and art activist. She currently works at SITELAB urban studio, implementing public realm possibilities within a range of scales, from 28-acre mixed use developments to chain-link fence installations.

2014.11.02 9:42pm
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Urban Symposium No. 1

The first Urban Symposium event, as a part of StoreFrontLab Season 2, kicked off with a full room of people, each with a party hat on and margarita in hand. > Read More

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2014.11.02 1:34pm
Filed under: Architecture, Fiction, Planning, Reviews,

TraceSF launches City Makers salon

This month TraceSF introduces City Makers, a new salon series at StoreFrontLab. Hosted by Amanda Loper of David Baker Architects and Emily Gosack of Jensen Architects, City Makers grew out of a desire to hear more from the women at the forefront of City Making. John Parman, a founding editor of TraceSF, spoke with Amanda and Emily about the series, which opens on October 28 with  Laura Crescimano, a principal of SITELAB urban studio.

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2014.10.27 2:17pm
Filed under: Architecture, Events, Interviews, Planning, Policy,

Contributor Profile: Michael Willis

Michael Willis is a well-known Bay Area architect.

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2014.08.14 12:44pm
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Knowledge City: Rethinking Heidelberg

Berlin architect Professor Michael Braum led off the first day’s session. Photo: Michael Willis

Heidelberg, one of Europe’s oldest university towns, is looking at its future. Here’s a firsthand account of what’s ahead and what it might means for university towns here. > Read More

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2014.08.14 12:39pm
Filed under: Events, Planning, Reviews,

Carlo Scarpa In Person

“Carlo Scarpa, Berkeley, California, 1969,” photo courtesy of the University of California Berkeley Art Museum and Pacific Film Archive.

 

When one turns the page of an architecture magazine and the work of Carlo Scarpa appears unexpectedly, a quiet inner thrill is felt. Since his passing in 1978, we seem increasingly moved by Scarpa’s caress of material, his strange but faultless sense of placement and proportion, the contemplative nature of his details. These appreciations are heightened by the knowledge that his output was relatively limited. > Read More

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2014.03.19 7:48pm
Filed under: Architecture, Art, Essays,

Contributor Profile: Max Levy

 

A graduate of the University of California at Berkeley (1970), Dallas architect Max Levy, FAIA, established his studio in 1984. He is best known for designs that connect people with nature in both rural and urban settings. > Read More

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2014.03.09 11:21am
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Planned Growth or Unplanned Strife?

and

 

Will San Francisco follow through on its carefully laid plans to accommodate a growing population, or will it continue to fight the same battles time and time again?

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2014.02.01 11:02am
Filed under: Architecture, Planning, Policy, ,

Contributor Profile: Mark Hogan

 

Mark Hogan AIA, LEED BD+C is a licensed architect in the states of New York and California. His primary interests lie in housing, sustainable urban design and in enhancing digital design workflows. > Read More

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2014.02.01 10:44am
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Urban Activation Device & TXP

Spanish art & architecture collective Todo Por La Praxis is seeking collaborators and participants for their experimental research on activating the urban void. > Read More

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2013.10.27 8:59pm
Filed under: Architecture, Art, Events,

When Cities Fall: Urban Histories and Political Memory

Destroyed city of Mostar, Bosnia-Herzegovina in 1995. Photo by Thom Hoffman.

Our experience of the present is shaped by our understanding of the past. By ignoring the urban narratives of  monuments, structures, city parks, memorials…what messages are we missing for the present?  > Read More

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2013.09.02 2:18pm
Filed under: Architecture, History, Misc, Planning, Tags: , , , , , , , ,

Save SLO County!

Heading into Paso Robles from the west, 2013

 

Will San Luis Obispo (SLO) County remain predominantly agricultural, or will it sink into the same morass of rural sprawl that took out Orange County? It could go either way, but there’s still hope if we act now. > Read More

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2013.09.02 9:47am
Filed under: History, Planning, Policy, Politics,

The Living Newspaper: Extra Extra

Image courtesy of Southern Exposure

Southern Exposure is launching a public art program, The Living Newspaper: Extra Extra, the first West Coast performance project by the artist Liz Magic Laser and her collaborators, the actors Audrey Crabtree and Michael Wiener. > Read More

2013.08.07 9:35am
Filed under: Events,

The Floods in Budapest

Eyes on the River. Photo by Christopher Herring.

The stone banks alongside the river contain the city. Despite them, here is the river, rising.  Silently, swiftly the waters swarm downstream; the swell of water does not much alter the river’s appearance.  You know there is more of it now only because benches, parks, and the bike road are being submerged.  It has not yet risen to the main city wall, about 20 feet higher; three more days of flooding expected.  

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2013.07.10 11:01am
Filed under: Field Notes,

Contributor Profile: Elizabeth Snowden

Photo by Christopher Herring.

Elizabeth Snowden is a Berkeley-based writer and editor. A graduate of Bard College, she has edited catalogues raisonnés on Picasso and Gris for Wittenborn Art Books in San Francisco.

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2013.07.07 5:04pm
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Mr. Waka’s Dog House

Joseph Kosuth reviewing plans for the art installations at the Dog House. Photo by pm cook.

 

“Get out at the Sakuragaoka post office. Turn around and you’ll see a Lawson’s. Walk to it and then turn left. Walk up that street and you’ll see the Dog House on the right.” Typical Tokyo directions from the art impresario and entrepreneur Joni Waka. > Read More

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2013.06.14 8:31am
Filed under: Architecture, Art, Field Notes,