‘Memory of Water,’ 535 Mission St.
The vision: When Kahn glimpsed the 535 Mission parcel, “the white field reminded me of Mono Lake … what a cool opportunity to squander the better part of a city block on something useless but glimmering, for reasons of beauty and aesthetics.”
This impulse translated into a scheme that would take the concave concrete seal on the excavated site and use it as the frame for what Kahn likens to “a trampoline for the wind, a soft and compliant surface.”
Hooks along the perimeter of the cap would support a taut net of thin steel cables; that delicate grid in turn would brace a field of grainy metal discs that move independent of one another, the shimmer from a passing breeze likely to ripple across the rectangular lot.
The concept is distilled yet alive, one that if constructed would offer an ethereal counterpoint to the financial district swirl. And not just for pedestrians: “It’d be very entertaining for all the people in the buildings that look down” on the site, Kahn said. “There are a lot of eyes up there.”
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