What and Where

As a legacy of the Bay to Park Paseo and lasting imprint of World Design Capital 2024, a 45-foot-tall and 65-foot-wide Butterfly art installation is preparing to take flight atop the iconic Harbor Drive Pedestrian Bridge. The designer, Safdie Rabines Architects chose the Hermes Copper butterfly to bring awareness to a native butterfly whose  populations have become threatened due to wildfires, drought, and climate change.  The installation will use a series of mesh panels tensioned between the existing cable stays to create the form of the butterfly. Within the mesh, colored tabs are fastened to allow for airflow through the mesh, creating an illusion of movement as the tabs oscillate in the onshore breeze.

In addition to integrating a vision of nature into downtown’s urban landscape, this design reminds us of  the parallels between the migrating butterflies and the people who live their lives in our united region along the Mexico-United States border.  

To learn more the project, visit the website at: Bay to Park Paseo Project

PARTNERS:

Safdie Rabines Architects, TYLIN, UDG Projects

What and Where

The Bay to Park Paseo is a unique and engaging 1.7-mile impermanent pedestrian experience on Park Boulevard from the San Diego Bay to Balboa Park at Presidents Way. The project is led by 13 teams of volunteer designers, artists, and storytellers. The Paseo was originally envisioned by the notable urban planner, John Nolen, to the City of San Diego in 1908 and has been an unfulfilled dream of many in the design community. It passes many of the city’s beloved places through downtown’s East Village neighborhood including the Harbor Drive Pedestrian Bridge, Petco Park, the Central Library, UC San Diego Park & Market, NewSchool of Architecture & Design, IDEA1, City College, and San Diego High School. 

The Paseo is open to everyone, and tours of the project will be available throughout 2024.

To learn more the project and its legacy, visit the website at: Bay to Park Paseo Project

PARTICIPATING TEAMS:

Hilton San Diego Bayfront
Safdie Rabines Architects
Carrier Johnson + CULTURE & Ines Esnal, Artist
Rob Wellington Quigley Architects & Our Worlds
Studio E Architects
UC San Diego Design Lab Faculty & Students
Architects Mosher Drew, Mike Stepner & Frank Wolden
Miller Hull Partnership, LLP
Howard Blackson, Urban Designer & Armando de la Torre, Artist
James Brown Public Architecture & Arzu Ozkal, Artist
McCullough Landscape Architecture
URBAN INTERVENTIONS, UDG, Balboa Park Committee of 100 & Perry Vasquez, Artist
Downtown San Diego Partnership/Clean & Safe
Downtown San Diego Public Spaces Foundation (fiscal sponsor)

What and Why

Utilizing art created by partner Pete Garcia, URBAN INTERVENTIONS is able to contribute 100% of the proceeds to worthy initiatives and causes. This has included supporting first-year college students at SDSU, who are the first in their families to attend a university. Currently, proceeds from the catalogue are supporting Grow Urban in providing funds to plant missing street trees in downtown. To access the catalogue here’s the link. 

What and Where

Planting trees is one of the most significant ways to improve the social, mental, environmental health and economic well-being of the city. URBAN INTERVENTIONS co-created and partially funds an ongoing effort to replant missing street trees throughout downtown, , working with Downtown San Diego Partnership’s Clean & Safe program. Over 500 missing street  trees have been replaced, a comprehensive tree inventory using GIS mapping has been completed and the program has expanded to include tree maintenance, education and community engagement. This has attracted grants and funds from individuals, businesses and like-minded organizations.

For more information, visit Grow Urban at https://downtownsandiego.org/explore/grow-urban/

What and Where

IDEA1 is a mixed-use, full city block, development in downtown San Diego. Consisting of 292 apartments, office, and retail space for the popular Lola 55 restaurant. The project features a 16,000 square foot public/private plaza called the HUB, designed to build “community” among its residents and nearby neighbors. Programming of this space includes concerts, group exercise, an urban flee market, concerts, and dance performances.  

What and Where

Demonstrating that simple interventions can improve the appeal of any street, URBAN INTERVENTIONS worked with local property owners along a single block in downtown San Diego’s East Village. Fixing a broken streetlamp, replanting a missing tree, removing barbwire fencing and a general clean-up made a huge difference. A portion of the block is under redevelopment and existing properties have been greatly improved.

What and Where

A free pop-up street-poet happening on the evening of December 14, 2018 created and funded by URBAN INTERVENTIONS. The goal was to bring together the disparate communities of downtown to share stories on the themes of Compassion, Community and Tolerance – featuring three well known story-tellers Gil Sotu, Bridget Gray and Viet Mah accompanied by a saxophone and bongo drums. The East Village location was revealed one hour before the event via social media.

What and Where

Window Stories is a public art project created and partly funded by URBAN INTERVENTIONS to enhance the public space along E Street in San Diego’s East Village (downtown San Diego). It transformed a large wall of the Salvation Army retail store, that was frequently tagged, to tell four unique stories through 3-dimensional “windows” with light and motion-activated sound. While designed as impermanent, the 4 light boxes were up for more than 3 years. Tagging has essentially stopped, and the nearby area transformed. The installation has been embraced by the local community, including area homeless.

What and Where

Nothing is more boring, impersonal, and a big target for taggers in a city than a construction fence, but certainly not the one for IDEA1 – a project in downtown San Diego. A bold black and white painted geometric design on its construction fence served as the perfect background for a series of revolving “Stories” painted on 4′ X 8′ plywood sheets by students of the K-8 school Urban Discovery Academy located across the street. The “Stories” were replaced by new editions as previous ones were taken down and auctioned to raise funds for the school.

This project fostered a new spirit of community collaboration – a win-win for the students and school to raise funds and for the community who got to enjoy the aesthetic value of the construction fence, including the benefit of only having a handful of tags in 18 months.