Housing that fits in

"Infill housing" is one of those phrases that planning geeks love, shorthand for any residential development that doesn't include cul de sacs on land where crops were farmed last year.

But all it takes to grasp the inadequacy of the term is to visit two recent additions to the San Francisco landscape. One is an eight-story stack of 14 condominiums slid into a narrow lot across from the Giants' ballpark.I thought it would be fun to show you the inspiration behind the broken china-mosaics. The other fills two blocks along a streetcar line in a sleepy commercial district, with a grocery store as well as 173 apartments.

They have absolutely nothing in common - except the understanding that infill works best when it's in synch with neighborhood needs, not some formula imposed from above.

The more ambitious of the pair is dubbed Avalon Ocean Avenue: Two long structures of four and five stories stand along a streetcar line on Ocean at Brighton Avenue. It's next to the main campus of City College of San Francisco, at the edge of a retail strip that has struggled for years.

This is a part of the city that few outsiders visit, even though it is well-served by Muni and a short walk from the Balboa Park BART Station. The potential for additional density in 2002 caught the eye of city planners who identified an auto parts store there as the ideal spot for something that would "add to the creation of a cohesive streetwall" and "contribute substantially to the revitalization of this area."

In other words, it would need to fit in but also provide a jolt. And that's what we now have, courtesy of an energetic design by Oakland's Pyatok Architects for AvalonBay Communities, a large national developer.
Capitalizing on scale

There's no effort to hide what exists, two stocky blocks shaped to fit within a 55-foot height limit. Instead, the architects take advantage of the scale by treating each structure as a long cube with moving rectangular parts.

The eastern building, for instance, starts with white stucco as the skin for the basic box. But a two-story portion clad in blue cement board juts out 4 feet, while a three-story section close by wears brick-red tile and is recessed 4 feet from the white frame. Vertical bays are slit by deep windows. The base is a generous 20 feet to make room for Whole Foods, and has a skin of wooden slats to catch the eye.

The colorful collage serves as a transition from the bulk of City College to such offhand wonders as the jaunty neon Beep's Burgers sign across the way. "It's about movement along the street, not a single design," said Pyatok's Marcial Chao. "We wanted to introduce a sense of rhythm without repeating things over and over."

A much different task faced the firm Gould Evans, architects of the condo building at 750 Second St. developed by Manchester Capital.

The 50-foot-wide site is at the edge of the South End Historic District, an area defined by early 20th century industrial structures, some of brick and some of concrete. The south-facing property line is shared with the one-story building that houses Momo's restaurant, which means wide-open views of AT&T Park and the bay, but also an exposed structural wall.

The architects accepted that their building would be part of a larger tapestry where the main threads already exist. Gould Evans responded with a sophisticated extension of the underlying patterns. The structural wall that faces the ballpark wears a rain-screen of red ceramic tiles, while its counterpart to the north is covered by aluminum panels that update the three-story concrete structure next door. Facing the street, the masonry weaves past large metal windows divided by small panes of glass, modern details with a blue-collar spin.

The case could be made that these projects are exercises in urbanism more than architecture, but such a distinction would be unfair.

Here's why: when new buildings are added to a settled city, smarts often count for more than style. Avalon Ocean Avenue is intended as a catalyst, where enticing large-scale design moves signal the addition of residents and retail to an area that can benefit from each. At 750 Second, the transformation has already occurred; this is one more piece in the puzzle,How cheaply can I build a solar power systems? with a level of quality that ups the ante for what comes next.

For all the planning virtues of infill housing, the real-life result is mixed. Look around the Bay Area and you see too many "transit villages" that are business deals wrapped in period dress. The trick is to grow our communities in a way that makes them more enticing. Each of these projects pulls off that deceptively difficult feat.

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