What's Out There Weekend Shares Bay Area Design History

SAN FRANCISCO—The Cultural Landscape Foundation is holding a What's Out There Weekend San Francisco Bay Area event from September 13 to 15, featuring free expert-led tours of the area's parks, gardens, landscapes and open spaces. These tours enable people to discover the design history of places they may pass every day but don't necessarily know the back story about the properties.

Expert guides will provide personal anecdotes and keen observations about each site, landscape architecture, city shaping and garden design. In addition, the foundation will produce an online What's Out There Cultural Landscapes Guide to the Bay Area with 55 sites along with a print publication that is available for purchase. An opening reception on September 13 precedes the tours. All of the tours and the reception are free, but registration is required and capacity is limited.

Among the sites featured are Salesforce Park designed by PWP Landscape Architecture with a tour led by Ashley Langworthy of BRV, Mission Bay and Daggett Park with tours led by Rene Bihan of SWA and Cultural Landscape Foundation board member and Chris Guillard of CMG, Crissy Field and Tunnel Tops with tours led by Claire Mooney of the Golden Gate National Parks Conservancy and Michael Boland of the Presidio Trust, Stanford University with a tour led by Andrea Cochran of Andrea Cochran Landscape Architecture and John Wong of SWA, and the Kaiser Roof Garden and Lake Merritt with tours led by Jonathan Rusch of ICF.

"These What's Out There tours are a great up-close look from experts including some of the landscape architects who did the work themselves," Bihan tells GlobeSt.com. "The personal back-stories and design elaboration offer a unique experience behind the Bay Area's public realm."

The September 13 reception will be held at SWA, 530 Bush St., 6th Floor in San Francisco from 5:00 to 9:00 p.m.

September 14 Sites, Tour Guides and Times:

Golden Gate Park Japanese Tea Garden (San Francisco), Stephen Pitsenbarger (San Francisco Recreation and Parks), 9:00 to 10:00 a.m.

Golden Gate Bridge Plaza, Pavilion and Trail (Golden Gate National Recreation Area), Golden Gate Overlook (San Francisco), John Skibbe, 9:00 to 10:15 a.m.

Stanford University (Palo Alto), John Wong (SWA) and Andrea Cochran (Andrea Cochran Landscape Architecture), 10:00 a.m. to 12:00 p.m.

Music Concourse (Golden Gate Park) and New de Young Museum Gardens (San Francisco), Doug Nelson (RHAA) and John Dennis (San Francisco Public Works), 10:15 to 11:30 a.m.

Clement Street (San Francisco), Andrea Dumovich (ICF), 10:45 a.m. to 12:00 p.m.

Fort Baker and Cavallo Point (Golden Gate National Recreation Area) (Sausalito), John Skibbe, 10:45 a.m. to 12:00 p.m.

Greenwood Common (Berkeley), Ted Korth (KSH), 10:45 a.m. to 12:00 p.m.

UC Berkeley (Berkeley), Veronica Wong, 1:00 to 2:30 p.m.

Marin Art and Garden Center (Ross), Steven Schwager, 1:00 to 2:30 p.m.

Crissy Field and Tunnel Tops (San Francisco), Claire Mooney (GGNPC) and Michael Boland (Presidio Trust), 1:00 to 3:00 p.m.

Civic Center Plaza (San Francisco) and UN Plaza (San Francisco), John Dennis (San Francisco Public Works), Nicholas Perry (San Francisco Planning) and Jorgen Cleeman (San Francisco Planning), 1:30 to 3:00 p.m.

Golden Gateway, Sydney G. Walton Park and One Maritime Plaza (San Francisco), Adam Greenspan (PWP), 2:00 to 3:30 p.m.

Lands End (San Francisco), John Skibbe, 3:30 to 4:45 p.m.

Salesforce Park at Transbay Center (San Francisco), Ashley Langworthy (BRV), 4:00 to 5:30 p.m.

September 15 Sites, Tour Guides, Times:

Justin Herman Plaza/Embarcadero (San Francisco), Hannah Simonson (Page & Turnbull), 9:00 to 10:15 a.m.

Sigmund Stern Grove (San Francisco), Koa Pickering (San Francisco Public Works), 9:00 to 10:15 a.m.

Mills College (Oakland), Vonn Marie May with Karen Fiene, 10:30 a.m. to 12:15 p.m.

Ghirardelli Square, Fort Mason, Aquatic Park and Jefferson Street (San Francisco), Rene Bihan (SWA) and Fran Hegeler (SWA), 10:45 a.m. to 12:45 p.m. Please note: hilly terrain

VMWare Campus (Palo Alto), Jay Swaintek (PWP), 11:00 a.m. to 12:15 p.m.

Joe DiMaggio Playground, Fay Park and Pioneer Park (San Francisco), Lizzy Hirsch (San Francisco Public Works) with Julie Christensen (neighborhood advocate), 1:30 to 3:00 p.m. Please note: hilly terrain

Kaiser Center Roof Garden and Lake Merritt (Oakland), Jonathan Rusch (ICF), 1:30 to 3:00 p.m.

Oakland Museum of California (Oakland), Hood Design Studio, 2:45 to 4:00 p.m.

South Park (San Francisco), David Fletcher (Fletcher Studio), 3:30 to 5:00 p.m.

Warriors Stadium, Mission Bay public spaces and Daggett Park (San Francisco), Rene Bihan (SWA) and Chris Guillard (CMG), 3:30 to 5:00 p.m.

What's Out There Weekend San Francisco Bay Area dovetails with Cultural Landscape Foundation's web-based What's Out There, the nation's most comprehensive searchable database of historic designed landscapes. The database currently features more than 2,000 sites, 11,000 images and 1,100 designer profiles. What's Out There is optimized for iPhones and similar handheld devices, and includes What's Nearby, a GPS-enabled feature that locates all landscapes within a given distance, customizable by mileage or walking time.

"The Bay Area's rich and distinct identity is embedded in its diverse landscape legacy," said Charles A. Birnbaum, Cultural Landscape Foundation's president and CEO, "and the What's Out There Weekend program is an engaging way to discover these riches."

What's Out There Weekend San Francisco Bay Area is made possible by the National Endowment for the Arts, San Francisco Recreation and Parks Department, American Society of Landscape Architects Northern California Chapter; Presenting sponsors Bartlett Tree Experts, BrightView Landscape Development, Kay Woods, SWA and Victor Stanley, and additional supporting sponsors and friends.

As for one of the hottest tours, Chase Center, designers at SWA sought to create an inviting destination by providing flexible plazas equivalent to a series of outdoor living rooms. Custom-designed planters/seating modules are deployed throughout to frame different events. The modules can be moved by forklift to create spaces for ice skating, farmers' markets, an instant micro-garden or a car show and also aid in traffic flow. Whether they have game tickets or not, visitors are invited to walk up a grand staircase to take in spectacular views of the Bay, enjoy a picnic lunch, visit the retail and dining outlets or meet friends for an alfresco movie. Landscape design unifies and supports those activities through plazas connected by a spiraling path that echoes the arena's built form. In fulfilling San Francisco's strict codes for water runoff, designers created a special terraced garden along Third Street that reveals the bio-filtration process by which plants help to cleanse all water on site. Native California planting throughout the 10-acre parcel of land conserves water, provides a shade canopy and unifies the area's character, GlobeSt.com learns.

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Lisa Brown is an editor for the south and west regions of GlobeSt.com. She has 25-plus years of real estate experience, with a regional PR role at Grubb & Ellis and a national communications position at MMI. Brown also spent 10 years as executive director at NAIOP San Francisco Bay Area chapter, where she led the organization to achieving its first national award honors and recognition on Capitol Hill. She has written extensively on commercial real estate topics and edited numerous pieces on the subject.