The design of this 65 unit affordable housing was the result of a series of community design workshops involving many residents from the Bernal Heights neighborhood in San Francisco. The result was a compromise permitting the maximum number of units, a reduction in the required number of parking spaces, with an attractive massing of roof forms that the uphill neighborhood considered important.
Gold Medal Award – This family housing development was the result of a participatory design process involving many residents of the Bernal Heights neighborhood of San Francisco. A ‘street wall’ boulevard building wraps the corner of Mission and Chavez Streets, the main crossroads of the neighborhood. The ground floor contains a neighborhood adult school and childcare center designed to assist lower-income families to become economically self-sufficient and language proficient. Behind this front building are four courtyards in the center of the block surrounded by family townhomes stacked above accessible flats. Two of the courts are above the parking garage. This cluster of mid-block ‘cottages’ shapes a small village with play areas secure from the surrounding heavily-trafficked streets.
Arq. Christopher Young
Arq. Rosa de la Sota
Award Winner – Professional Builders & HUD: Best American Living – Gold Metal Award Best Rental Housing – 2001,
Maxwell Award –2002,
MetLife Foundation Award – 2006
Architectural Record
Bernal Gateway Apartments won the Maxwell Award in 2002 for its unique integration of permanently affordable apartments for families with low to extremely low incomes, on-site supportive services for residents, employment training and a child development center available to the public coupled with its innovative design created through an involved process of community participation. In 2006, the project was awarded first place in the MetLife Foundation Award for Excellence in Affordable Housing in the supportive housing category, also for Bernal Gateway
The ground floor contains a neighborhood adult school and child care center supporting a pre-school and daycare. The adult school for the surrounding community and tenants is structured to assist the mostly single mothers to become economically self-sufficient and language proficient.
