Architecture, Democracy and the Public Forum

During this 250th anniversary of the signing of the Declaration of Independence, we reflect on the foundational values of democracy in relationship to the built environment. Our panelists will discuss the impact and importance of architecture and urban planning that encourages equity, public engagement and discourse. Katherine Petrin, Architectural Historian will be talking about ancient, historical and contemporary perspectives on public spaces that impact cultural and civic life. Chris Carlson of Shaping San Francisco will talk about the public square as places of political movements and the public voice – from protests to strikes in San Francisco. Willett Moss of Conger Moss Guillard Landscape Design will offer various projects that engage communities in the development to create beautiful and accessible parks and gathering spaces. Susie Coliver of Herman Coliver Locus Architecture will talk about creating sacred community spaces. Sofie Kvist of Gehl Studio, SF will discuss people-centered design.

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Speakers:

Katherine Petrin is an Architectural Historian and Preservation Planner. With over twenty years of professional experience since completing her Masters Degree in Historic Preservation of Architecture at Columbia University, Katherine has worked on a wide range of project types surveying, assessing and documenting the historic built environment: at the Fundacion Casa Ducal de Medinaceli in Seville, Spain; in New York City; at the firm HOK in London; and, at Architectural Resources Group in San Francisco. Katherine is Vice President of the San Francisco Neighborhood Theater Foundation, which has advocated for the City’s historic theaters since 2000. She is a founding member of Save New Mission and authored landmark legislation for the New Mission Theater, now the Alamo Drafthouse. In 2013, she launched a private consulting practice with offices in the historic Maybeck Building in North Beach.

Chris Carlsson, is a writer, San Francisco historian, “professor,” bicyclist, tour guide, blogger, photographer, book and magazine designer. He has written four books (When Shells Crumble, Hidden San Francisco: A Guide to Lost Landscapes, Unsung Heroes, and Radical Histories; After the Deluge; Nowtopia) edited six books, (Reclaiming San Francisco, The Political Edge, Bad Attitude, Critical Mass: Bicycling’s Defiant Celebration, Ten Years That Shook the City: San Francisco, 1968-78 and Shift Happens! Critical Mass at 20), and co-authored the expanded second edition of Vanished Waters: The History of San Francisco’s Mission Bay. He helped co-found Critical Mass in September 1992. He has directed Shaping San Francisco since its inception in the mid-1990s, and continues to be co-director of the archive of San Francisco history at FoundSF.org. He has been an adjunct professor at the San Francisco Art Institute, the California Institute of Integral Studies, and most recently, the University of San Francisco.

Willett Moss is a Founding Partner of CMG Landscape Architecture and a Fellow of the American Academy in Rome. His project experience includes community-based design, sustainable urban systems, planning rooted in ecological understanding, and making historic resources relevant today. Willett leads CMG’s largest urban design and campus planning efforts at the firm, including San Francisco Civic Center Vision Plan and UC Berkeley Lower Sproul Plaza. In the past, he has enjoyed creating art and research focused on the intersection of public landscape, bodily experience, and collective memory. Willett holds a Masters in Landscape Architecture from Harvard University Graduate School of Design and a Bachelor of Science in Landscape Architecture from the University of Massachusetts.

Susie Coliver was born and raised in San Francisco. Along with her two partners, she leads a 14-person architectural practice in San Francisco: Herman Coliver Locus: Architecture, where 100% of their clients are non-profit organizations. Most of their work over a thirty year period has been supportive, multi-family housing for low-income families, seniors, the developmentally disabled and those experiencing homelessness, as well as Jewish religious and communal spaces, including a number of synagogues, throughout California.

Sofie Gvist is a director at Gehl and trained in Urban Design at Aarhus School of Architecture in Denmark. With 18 years of experience working across the globe, from Scandinavia and Europe to Asia, Australia, and the Americas, Sofie bridges her passion for people-centered design across all scales, from public realm strategies to urban transformation, and from precinct planning to public space design, Sofie strongly believes that without people and process, there is no project. Her recent work includes developing a public realm strategy for Vancouver, BC’s Gastown that centers on community healing; uncovering design and activation opportunities for Belle Isle Commons in Detroit; and serving as a research partner on public art as a tool for construction mitigation and community improvements during an eight-year metro line expansion.