Peak Experience re-conceives the hills of San Francisco into a series of varying and undulating mounds that frame a mix of uses, that promote the integration of play into traditional street models. – Atlas Lab, Kimberly Garza and Andrew Tenbrink

This is a unique project for Miracle Playsystems – Designing Play to be a part of and what appeals to us most is that we were given the opportunity to bring playful placemaking to the streetscape of San Francisco. When we were contacted by Rebecca of Atlas Lab, she shared her vision with us and brought us questions on design and construct-ability. This was a temporary installation as part of the 2015 SF Market Street Prototyping Festival. Peak Experience builds upon the recreational corridor of the waterfront to establish a strong identity for Market Street through the augmentation of the flexible sidewalk zone to create an active corridor that supports interactive discovery, play and community engagement. Responding to the views of SF’s landscape and often static streetscape elements, Peak Experience proposes a soft and flexible sidewalk zone that seeks to introduce a malleable street typology that provide a platform for varying community experiences, while educating users of SF geography.

Peak Experience occupied a 15’ x 15’ site, between 1st and 2nd St. that transforms the surface of the public sidewalk, expressing the topography of three of San Francisco hills: Nob Hill, Russian Hill, and Telegraph Hill. The topography is formed by milled foam, coated in flexible play surface. Overlaid on the topographic surface is the primary street grid of that hill, offering cues to the public of the iconic topography of their city.

Images courtesy of Atlas Lab.