No new neighbourhood is complete without green space, but many developments have an unfortunate tendency to think a simple stretch of lawn and a couple of flowerbeds will do. Thankfully, it’s an entirely different story at the new waterfront park at China Basin in San Francisco’s new mixed-use district of Mission Rock, just across from the Giants’ Oracle Park.
Explore San Francisco's new waterfront park at China Basin
A waterfront public space on the site of a former parking lot, the new five-acre China Basin Park offers lush green spaces, diverse amenities and dramatic views. It was designed as the beating heart of the new neighbourhood, developed as a public-private partnership between the San Francisco Giants, developers Tishman Speyer, and the Port of San Francisco.
Along with existing Phase 1 buildings by the likes of MVRDV, Henning Larsen, Studio Gang and WORKac, the park showcases the development’s focus on fostering an inclusive community and building resiliently – an innovative approach that earned Scape and its founder Kate Orff the 2023 Obel Award for its Living Breakwaters project. The New York studio has also recently garnered plaudits for transforming the banks of the Mississippi in Memphis into a stunning new public park in collaboration with Studio Gang.
‘The park is a place for people to gather and feel the energy coming from really diverse contexts – from the ballpark on gameday, to the rhythms of daily life from the Mission Rock neighbourhood, to the majesty of the bay horizon beyond to the intimacy of China Basin’s watery edge. The park responds to all of these forces,’ said Orff.
It also connects Mission Rock with the rest of the city, as the San Francisco Bay Trail runs directly through the park, completing a key piece of a 350-mile system. Elevated approximately five feet above ground, the trail functions as a primary line of protection from coastal flooding for the new neighbourhood and its park. The site was also lifted to a resilient elevation by using lightweight fill and is now 10 per cent lighter than it was before.
‘We’ve designed a mosaic of destinations that are in dialogue with this context: sunny open plazas, shady lifted groves, active stadium seating, expansive community lawns, a massive immersive stormwater garden, and a beachfront ecosystem all within a modest five-acre footprint – and all supercharged by the Bay Trail that loops them altogether,’ says Orff.
From the central plaza, visitors can take in the views over the Bay Bridge and downtown skyline, with the baseball stadium providing the perfect backdrop to a statue of Willie McCovey, the Giants first baseman. There’s also a series of raised stadium seats that allow groups to gather and watch the bustle of Oracle Park across McCovey Cove, and a promenade lined with seating and a concrete floor references the patterns created by the tide washing up and down the beach.
The plaza is surrounded by a series of spaces inspired by the unique ecosystems of the Bay Area, and each magnifying a different local landscape. The adjoining Gathering Grove, for example, is sheltered from the wind by sculptural red-trunked Marina strawberry trees which over time will expand to form an undulating canopy. Lit up with catenary lights, the pink plaza is designed to welcome cultural events, classes and fairs.
Another event space is the Great Lawn, framed by Monterey cypress and a variety of oak trees. Sculpted to create the illusion of a natural amphitheatre and undulating green space spilling into the water, it slopes down towards the seafront and Shoreline Sands. By the water, seating and climbing elements made of reclaimed eucalyptus branches emerge from the sand, with an oyster shell strip marking the edge of the area.
Buffering the park’s edge along Pier 48, an 11,000-sq-ft stormwater garden helps treat, store, and convey runoff water from the new neighbourhood. A haven for birds and insects, it’s accessible through a series of elevated boardwalks, from which visitors can admire native plants that can endure intense periods of flooding and drought, such s sticky monkey-flower, giant wildrye and California fuchsia.
The only building in the park, an all-gender public restroom by local studio Min Design, is almost invisible. Tucked away under a lawn near the central plaza, it is located just across from the beach and Bay Trail, to provide a safer experience for all users.
Scape is currently designing the landscape for the Sustainability Commons at the Stanford Doerr School of Sustainability, the Hayward Shoreline Master Plan, and the UCSF Parnassus Central Campus landscape.
