Presidio park project lands architect behind High Line in N.Y.

A New York landscape architect will lead the design efforts for what could become one of San Francisco’s most remarkable settings, a new bluff overlooking Crissy Field.

The selection of James Corner and his firm Field Operations comes after an unusual competition where five teams were asked to submit conceptual visions for the 13 acres that will blanket two automobile tunnels now under construction. The competition was overseen by the Presidio Trust, which manages nearly all of the 1,491-acre park at the foot of the Golden Gate Bridge.

Corner is best known for the High Line, an unusual elevated park in Manhattan that has become a sensation. His concept here extended the Main Post’s central lawn to a curvaceous bluff atop the tunnels, then slid via paths to a more intimate landscape along Mason Street facing Crissy Field’s marsh. Equally important, Field Operations’ proven ability to work with neighborhood groups and bureaucracies could improve the odds of success for a project sure to be as closely scrutinized as any in the city.

“James shows an approach to the public arena that really is essential,” said trust Executive Director Craig Middleton. “We don’t feel we need to create an icon. This should be a place that celebrates the icons all around us.”

Though Middleton praised the “elegant simplicity” of Field Operations’ concept, he stressed the seven-month exercise was “a competition for a team, not a competition for a design.” That process will begin with public workshops likely to begin in late January.

Winning commissions

Since the 2009 opening of the High Line, a transformation of an abandoned elevated freight rail line in Manhattan designed with Diller Scofidio + Renfro, Field Operations has won high-profile commissions in Philadelphia, Seattle and Chicago. Each of the designs is expressive, and Corner indicated in a telephone interview that he has a similar goal here.

“My concern is that we don’t underacheive,” Corner said. “The challenge moving forward is to realize the full potential of the site — without a big show, without some spaceship-like design, but also not something that’s bland and uninteresting.”

That balancing act could be tricky, given the ill-fated track record of recent large proposals for this corner of the Presidio.

In February, the trust’s seven-member board rejected all three finalists in a competition to redevelop land along Mason Street that holds a parking lot and commissary building leased by a sporting goods retailer. The finalists had included “Star Wars” creator George Lucas, who offered to privately erect and endow a museum to house his collection of illustrative and digital art.

'We’re not conservative’

In 2007, the trust welcomed Gap founder Donald Fisher when he sought to build a museum on the Main Post to house his family’s collection of contemporary art — a quest abandoned in 2009 after preservationists and the National Park Service were part of a chorus of objections to the modern design sought by Fisher.

“A lot of our projects are public projects, with a lot of stakeholders, and this one no doubt will have its own complications,” said Corner, who described his firm’s approach as “a bit of a morphing process. ... We’re not conservative or hesitant in floating ideas. The ones that people are the most positive and enthusiastic about are the ones that go forward.”

Corner already has tweaked the makeup of his team in response to one request by trust officials. It now will include San Francisco architecture firm EHDD, which had been part of the finalist team organized by landscape architecture firm CMG.

2018 opening goal

The formal design effort is expected to last through 2015. The goal is to open in 2018 on land that covers and surrounds the new Presidio Parkway, which will replace Doyle Drive as the main roadway to the Golden Gate Bridge. The park will include a youth-oriented “learning landscape” as well as a variety of scenic and gathering spaces.

And while the project will be on land controlled by the trust, it is being steered by a partnership that also includes the National Parks Service and the Golden Gate National Parks Conservancy. The latter is a nonprofit that oversees fundraising and private projects within the 80,000-acre Golden Gate National Recreation Area, of which the Presidio is a part.

As for the estimated $51 million budget, more than $34 million already has been raised from private foundations. The effort kicked off last year with a $25 million contribution from the S.D. Bechtel Jr. Foundation.

The best ideas

James Corner Field Operations was the unanimous choice to design a new park threading Crissy Field into the Presidio’s Main Post, but “there were a lot of close seconds,” said the Presidio Trust’s Craig Middleton. With that in mind, and since this was billed as an ideas competition, here’s an idea from each runner-up that deserves to remain in the mix.

Like Field Operations, Snøhetta laid out a vision that blended the surrounding landscapes. The firm’s team also included several existing buildings on Halleck Street alongside the site, calling for a “hive” of activities “showcasing today’s most exciting new talent in the creative and culinary arts.”

The most theatrical of the submissions was from the team led by Olin, a busy landscape with too much going on, including a runway-like overlook. But the mix included several small wind-shaded lawns ideal for small-scale gatherings — a park-friendly feature the Presidio now lacks.

No concept was as visually ambitious as the one from West 8, which conceived the transition from the Main Post to Crissy Field as an immense circle tilted on its side. But the fine-grain details are equally vivid, such as movable “wind shields” that looked a bit like red sails on the bay.

The local team of CMG, EHDD and the Exploratorium had a user-friendly concept that included a footbridge gliding from the newly created bluff to the bayside edge of Crissy Field’s vast lawn. For many people, the gesture was too extravagant;

for me, it had a lyricism that, done right, could unite the two landscapes with audacity and grace.

— John King