Housing with touch of style
New Navigation Center opens in Dogpatch
The newest residential complex in San Francisco’s Dogpatch comes with snappy accents of “Inchworm green” and “Aegean blue.” Redwood pergolas shade the central courtyard, and two raised planters hold young lime trees.
Not bad for a 64-bed Navigation Center that’s designed to move homeless people from the streets to long-term housing.
The three-quarter-acre compound at the end of 25th Street is the third center the city has opened and the first designed from the ground-up by architects at the Department of Public Works. The other two adapted existing buildings, with the goal of taking people off the street for a month or two and helping them move forward with their lives.
And while politicians and neighborhood groups elsewhere squabble about the location of future centers, this one shows the effort to create a framework that serves the residents while not disrupting what’s around it.
“The quality and look of things makes such a big difference,” said Jeff Kositsky, head of the city’s Department of Homelessness and
Supportive Housing. “Homeless people respond to that like anyone else.”
The $1.5 million enclave is an odd cross between institutional and inviting. Ad hoc yet humane. The cots are simple, but each comes with two small lockers and a small safe under the bed.
The layout was determined by the site, a deep 55-foot-wide strip of 25th Street with a Muni light rail facility on one side and industrial storage on the other. Another constraint: It’s intended to be in place for only three years, so no permanent structures could be installed. That’s why the center sits four steps above the street, with utility lines and pipes resting on the asphalt underneath.
At the front along the street are offices, with the entryway set in a wall covered with an intricate, vaguely floral mural, and lime-green modules where residents can meet one-on-one with social service providers. At the back, where you can glimpse the bay beyond a large industrial lot, three cheery “marigold yellow” modules combine to form a single space for dining, presentations and escape from the sun.
Between these two ends are the modules that were assembled into communal sleeping rooms; they wear coats of lustrous blue. In all, the center consists of 14 prefabricated modules arranged into four distinct clusters.
“There were some in-house discussions about colors, and a colorful solution won out,” said Paul De Freitas, the architect who oversaw the project for Public Works. “We’re next to a big, gray Muni yard, so adding some vibrancy helps.”
The color also serves to help residents feel comfortable within the facility, providing easy visual cues to what is where while breaking down the scale of the fenced-in compound. The same goes for the three courtyards. The largest is framed by three pergolas and includes a square of artificial turf; another offers that tantalizing hint of the not-too-distant bay.
In essence, the design seeks to conjure up an enclave with variations of scale and a variety of moods — a space where you could pass the hours without being drawn to the temptations of the street. That is important, since residents can stay in the center around the clock, unlike a typical shelter.
“We really tried to define areas that are smaller, that have different orientations to the sun, where activities can happen,” said City Architect Edgar Lopez. “The basic design concept is that this has to be a desirable place to be, where residents will want to stay inside rather than loiter on the street.”
That’s an ongoing problem at 1950 Mission St., which opened in 2015 as the city’s first Navigation Center. Its outdoor space, a former parking lot open to the sidewalk, is no match for the temptations outside on a particularly squalid, lively block.
In Dogpatch, the setting is remote from the hubbub and the center’s layout is consciously self-contained: Neighbors see the entry stairs and ramp with wooden railings, then three multicolored modules and the new mural. The other spaces are tucked inside. Residents can go out on the front deck, but everything to the west is fence-lined asphalt.
One month after opening, only 12 of the 64 beds had been assigned. The landscaping is a work in progress, missing such elements as the large pots with vines that are intended to snake up the pergolas and someday provide shade.
But one early resident has no complaints.
“I’ve never done well in shelters — too much stealing, too many people with bugs and mental conditions,” said Glenn Pounds, who arrived in San Francisco seven years ago after stints in Portland, Ore., and New Orleans. “This feels pretty good, though. Home-like.”
When temperatures kicked up over the weekend, he retreated to the orange-clad common room. Otherwise, he stayed outside or huddled with social workers on paperwork for benefits that long ago lapsed, the kind of thing that happens when you’re always on the move.
And yes, he’s taken notice of his surroundings.
“I’m an artist, so I definitely see the color contrasts,” Pounds said. “It’s better than other shelters, where everything is gray.”