San Francisco Bay Harbor has recently been going through a reincarnation with a new emphasis on sustainability, according to Greensource. The efforts to make the waterfront more sustainable include the construction of a cruise terminal as well as the planning of a 69-acre enclave that includes many historic structures.
The first project that will be completed is the move of the Exploratorium science museum to a much larger building, which will be the largest net-zero-energy museum in the nation. The building includes marine laboratories and two restaurants, so it is a large task.
"The Exploratorium and the design team started by saying we wanted to build a lab to teach about sustainable practices," Marc L'Italien, a principal at the architecture firm EHDD told Greensource. They have been working on the project since 2006. "The idea was 'Let's shoot for something beyond LEED, really raise the bar.'"
The location of the building on the pier is key to its net-zero status because the pier is almost never in shadow.
Another project is the new building on Pier 27 that will be the home to a new cruise terminal. This was not as successful in the low-energy design.
"We started out all gung-ho, but it turned out a solar farm makes no financial sense," Peter Pfau, an architect working on the design, said.
Instead, they focused on aspects such as low-energy ventilation and recycling and filtering water through a system that steers rainwater from the roof and surrounding paved surfaces into tanks that will be filtered as needed and then used to flush toilets and for the irrigation of a landscaped plaza between the terminal and the Embarcadero.
South of those projects, at the Pier 70 district, there is a project to create a mix of new construction, open space and restoration of old equipment in an area that was once devoted to heavy industry and now stands mostly empty, filled with vacant lots.
"There's nothing better we can do for sustainability than to make use of all this existing built material," Dan Hodapp, a senior planner at the port, said. "Pier 70 is this amazing collection of historic structures."
San Francisco Bay is susceptible to flooding, so an emphasis is also being placed on making the shoreline resilient using open spaces that can absorb the rush of high tides.
"When you look at the studies being done, you need to start thinking longer-term," Hodapp said in a statement that applies to both sea levels and the importance of the renewed waterfront area.
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