You won’t normally find a daybed at an electrical substation, but leave it to San Francisco architect Stanley Saitowitz to make the most of what would appear to be a meager architectural opportunity. The original brief was to enliven the stark tilt-up concrete facades of two new PG&E substations. But Saitowitz expanded the program to encompass illuminated plazas with sculptural seating—a generous civic gesture.
To increase the electrical supply to downtown San Francisco, California utility company PG&E needed to add a new power line from its Potrero switchyard, located three miles south, and construct a new substation at either end. Saitowitz saw that there was room to push each substation back from the sidewalk in order to prioritize pedestrians and the streetscape. “The idea that we had was to make the plaza and the facade surface continuous—the structure wraps down into the plaza and becomes furniture,” says Saitowitz, principal and founder of Natoma Architects.
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