Sketching San Francisco: Exploring Culture, History, and Place - St. Mary’s Square

Sketching San Francisco

Exploring Culture, History, and Place is a three-part sketch series that invites participants to slow down and experience the city through observation, conversation, and drawing. Each 90-minute session focuses on a significant San Francisco site, including the Presidio Main Post, St. Mary’s Square, and the Ferry Building, pairing local history and cultural context with a guided sketching objective. Participants will explore architecture, public space, materials, movement, light, and sense of place through accessible prompts and on-site support. No drawing experience is required. Basic sketching materials and a site-specific culinary treat are included. Open to A&E professionals, design enthusiasts, history and architecture lovers, and the general public.

St. Mary’s Square

Theme: Public Space, Cultural Memory & Urban Density

Site Focus: How this compact public space holds layered histories and community uses within Chinatown’s dense urban fabric

Historic / Cultural Angle: St. Mary’s Square reflects San Francisco’s layered urban history. Set within the dense fabric of Chinatown near Old St. Mary’s Cathedral, the square offers a small but important public open space in a city where open space is limited and highly valued. This session looks at how a compact urban square can reveal larger stories about immigration, community, resilience, density, and cultural memory.

Sketching Learning Objective: Color and Shadow

Culinary Treat: Egg Tarts or Pork Buns from Eastern Bakery

Who Can Attend:

This program is open to A&E professionals, design enthusiasts, history and architecture lovers, and members of the general public interested in exploring San Francisco through sketching. No prior drawing experience is required; the sessions are designed to be accessible to beginners while still engaging for those with a design or sketching background. 

 What's Included:

• Basic sketching materials (participants will also be encouraged to bring their own)
• Overview of each site’s historic, cultural, architectural, and civic context
• On-site sketching guidance, tips, and support for all experience levels
• Site-specific culinary treat connected to the cultural character or local identity of the location 

Program Leads: 

Headshot Coming Soon

Douglas Tom, FAIA

Principal-in-Charge, TEF Design

Doug is a founding principal of TEF Design with more than four decades of experience and a longstanding commitment to architecture that serves the public good. His work has centered on community-driven design, education, and the stewardship of civic, historic, and culturally significant places throughout San Francisco and the Bay Area. An avid sketcher and watercolorist, Doug brings both an architect’s eye and an artist’s appreciation for how sketching can reveal the stories embedded in San Francisco’s built environment.

Josh Bevan, AICP

Architectural Historian-Project Manager, Rincon Consultants

Josh Bevan is an Architectural Historian and Project Manager with Rincon Consultants and has been based in the Bay Area since 2016. His work ranges from historical research and evaluation to adaptive reuse consultation and the development of interpretative displays, with a focus on communities in California and the Pacific Northwest. Since 2018, Josh has co-hosted multiple Nolli walking tours during AIA SF’s Architecture + City Festival and for AIA ‘23. Josh is a member of the American Institute of Certified Planners and was appointed to the City of Alameda’s Historical Advisory Board in 2025.

Emilio Ponce

Designer, TEF Design

Emilio is an aspiring architect with over six years of experience providing thoughtful and creative expertise to community, historic, recreation, and civic projects throughout the Bay Area. His caring approach during the design process helps steward projects toward harmony, beauty, and meaningful connection to place. With a passion for sketching, Emilio regularly leads TEF sketch walks throughout the city, helping participants use drawing to strengthen observation, explore the built environment, and connect with San Francisco’s architecture and public spaces.

Check out the other sessions in this series!

September 11th: Presidio Main Post

September 25th: Ferry Building