San Francisco Landscape-Architecture Firm Surfacedesign Reimagines Urban Spaces
Half-mile-long berms of volcanic rock and spiky grasses transform a generic airport into a striking gateway. Barnacle-shaped concrete benches, cast using 3-D–printed molds, turn an overlooked city pier into a popular gathering spot. An obsolete tollbooth for the Golden Gate Bridge now throngs with a different kind of traffic: runners and cyclists traversing a bayfront network of paths. These are just a few of the inventive ways Surfacedesign, a San Francisco landscape-architecture firm, has rejuvenated run-down urban spaces. Make no mistake: The trio helming this ten-year-old studio—James Lord, Roderick Wyllie, and Geoff di Girolamo—love a pretty garden. All California natives, the partners have a reputation for conceiving romantic landscapes, whether manicured grounds for a Victorian stone house or Mediterranean-inspired gardens for an up-to-the-minute residence by Olson Kundig. But give them a limited budget and a forlorn plot, and they make magic. When the Golden Gate National Parks Conservancy asked Surfacedesign to turn a parking lot into a visitors’ center at Lands End, a windy site on the western tip of San Francisco, the firm conjured a series of sheltering dunes planted with native species, all suited to dry conditions. Wood supplied by the Presidio’s forestry program was put to use in sleek benches that are prime spots for watching the fog roll in. “None of the plantings are irrigated—they survive, as they should, in the climate,” Wyllie explains. “That’s one of the ways we are thinking about water conservation in California.”
Surfacedesign partners (from left) James Lord, Roderick Wyllie, and Geoff di Girolamo.
Their built environments, or hardscapes, are equally considered. For Honolulu’s IBM plaza, Surfacedesign replicated the tuning-fork motif of the 1962 building in a square paved with volcanic stone, repeating the pattern on a bank of fountains. (The project earned the studio a 2015 honors award from the American Society of Landscape Architects.) “So much of our life is lived inside,” Lord says. “Our goal is to engage people physically, to create an environment that’s poetic and sculptural yet fun.”
Now the go-to firm for San Francisco tech gurus, Surfacedesign is developing the grounds of Uber’s new headquarters as well as gardens for three more Bay Area homes by Olson Kundig. In Washington, D.C., meanwhile, they are joining forces with architect Bjarke Ingels on a master plan to unify the many institutions of the Smithsonian’s South Mall into an inviting garden-filled campus.
Native plants cover the dunes at Lands End Lookout, a visitors’ center in San Francisco.
Yet it’s the prospect of converting inhospitable terrain into captivating settings—and promoting an aesthetic shift to water-conserving gardens—that continues to rev their imaginations. “Our biggest collaborator is the existing landscape,” Wyllie says. “We want to be thoughtful and optimistic about transforming neglected little spots. We’re not necessarily trying to do anything innovative, just what’s right for now.” sdisom
The firm lined the courtyard of an Olson Kundig–designed residence in Tiburon, California, with cherry trees.
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