La Fénix at 1950

2024 Design Awards Merit Recipient

La Fénix at 1950 is a symbolic project on a central site in the Mission, a district with a distinctive culture drawn from Pan-Latino roots and a challenging history around affordability and homelessness. As the area gentrifies, this building’s 157 affordable homes are meant to help Mission residents gain stability in their neighborhood—including 30 homes for formerly homeless families.

Community sustainability drives every design move. The building features a central courtyard that links a range of shared spaces to foster resident connection and social gatherings: a community room and kitchen, media lab, laundry lounge, and child-care center.

A new mid-block paseo lined with low-cost artist studios adds connectivity and continues the network of art spaces, plazas, and alleyways that characterize the Mission. The ground floor includes streetside space for a local café, a non-profit bicycle shop, and Youth Art Exchange, which will activate the gallery and paseo with workshops in photography, music recording, multimedia, and more traditional forms of art and cultural expression.

The building is topped by an extensive roof deck providing sweeping city views and space for gardening, play, and respite. The courtyard, deck, and open-air breezeways fill the community with fresh air and sunlight. Careful window orientation frames views of the city and surrounding hills.

Adjacent to 16th Street BART, this site has a long history of sheltering and educating the people of the Mission. Like its namesake phoenix, the vibrant new community represents the perpetual renewal of the site as a resource for local residents.

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This is a really interesting project that solves a challenging community need: to provide transitional affordable housing in a very dense neighborhood. It has a very creative solution in terms of the façade.

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Measure 1: Design for Integration

Packed full of essential community programs and critical new housing, this large building also needs to be economical and built to last and to perform well for the long-term owners and residents. This project uses straightforward and durable materials and finishes that require limited maintenance. Special materials are used strategically, concentrated in areas of maximum use and maximum benefit. Passive strategies include tight envelope design, sunshades, and operable windows, which reduce reliance on more active air conditioning systems for tenant comfort in the event of a power outage during a heat wave. The project’s location in proximate walking distance of essential services should provide a high degree of support to residents in case of large-scale events. The building’s flexible outdoor gathering spaces and amenity areas can be used by the broader community as needed during a crisis

Economy is also a core performance measure for this project. La Fénix is an efficiently designed and durable building with a focus on supporting the local economy. The Energy performance of this project centers on responding to the building’s microclimate, ensuring occupant comfort and control, and creating a high-performing building envelope.

Measure 2: Design for Equitable Communities

A partnership with Mission Housing, Cervantes Design Associates, and Oscar Grande of PODER was essential to the design process. A Community Advisory Committee with strong local ties provided feedback on early design concepts, programming and affordability targets. Bilingual community meetings focused on gathering feedback from educators, artists, nonprofits, local businesses, and the broader community. The art program was developed in collaboration with local artists and tenant spaces were designed to support local nonprofits or small scale retail. The nonprofit Youth Arts Exchange currently activates the gallery and studios along the paseo with creative workshops for teens.

Measure 3: Design for Ecosystems

The landscape design features native and Mediterranean-adapted plantings that enhance biodiversity. They were selected to withstand the harsh urban conditions, drought tolerance, and daily northwesterly winds common in San Francisco. The rooftop garden connects residents to nature and spectacular views, provides urban agriculture opportunities, and builds a community around these features.

Measure 4: Design for Water

This previously developed site—formerly two different schools, then a Navigation Center—was fully paved prior to the development of La Fénix. On-site stormwater management through permeable paving and planting achieved a 50% reduction in peak flow and a 26% reduction in volume from pre-development conditions. The building uses highly water-efficient fixtures, and unit water use is sub-metered.

Measure 5: Design for Economy

Textured concrete, tile, and steel screens on the ground level can hold up to the challenges of the urban site, while providing visual interest through color, scale, and texture. The locally sourced tile—in colors inspired by the neighborhood’s heritage—is a durable material that doesn’t fade and is easy to clean and graffiti- and water-resistant. The premium tile material is used judiciously, while the majority of the building is clad in economical, and highly durable fiber-cement siding.

Measure 6: Design for Energy

Designing for one of the city’s warmer neighborhoods in the context of a changing climate, it was important to properly respond to our microclimate. We conducted an overheating analysis to confirm the owner’s preference to exclude air conditioning. This allowed us to further calibrate window size shading depth, and keep sunshades and ceiling fans in the project. Energy efficiency features include in-unit HRVs to reduce heating load; and ENERGY STAR appliances (per GreenPoint Rated and TCAC standards.

Measure 7: Design for Well-Being

Urban housing enjoys access to nature, views, and outdoor social spaces. The roof deck and amenity areas support gardening, nutrition, and cooking programs. Enlightened circulation including open air bridges, outdoor stairs, bright indoor stairs, and well-lit outdoor areas encourage occupant activity and interaction. Sawtooth bays orient windows toward dramatic city and bay views. The project uses no-VOC paint and low-emitting materials throughout.

Measure 8: Design for Resources

Efforts were made to coordinate cement replacement with Central concrete as much as possible resulting in >10% offset. During construction, 65% of waste was diverted from landfill. The building utilizes rock wool continuous exterior insulation, which has an average 75% post-industrial content.

Measure 9: Design for Change

Through our study, we were able to prioritize more passive strategies such as envelope design, sunshades, ceiling fans and operable windows, which reduces reliance on more active air conditioning systems in the event of a power outage during a heat wave. In the event of a large-scale resilience event, this project’s location is a short walking distance of essential services providing a high degree of support to residents. Flexible outdoor gathering spaces and amenity areas can be used by the broader community as needed during a crisis.

Measure 10: Design for Discovery

In addition to the early community process described, we engaged our long-term client and local development partner early in our process of determining the owner’s project requirements through shared site walks to establish goals and standards. An outside commissioning agent was hired to review the domestic hot water and HVAC systems, and a blower door test was performed to confirm that the efficient envelope design and air sealing standard was achieved. A one-year site walk including feedback from staff and residents was used to address post occupancy concerns.