Launching a New Identity at Potrero Hill: Block X

When it comes to crafting the vision for a new home community, we start with the residents, the builder team and directly involve the community. We know when we create an identity for people to call “home”, it provides the ultimate opportunity for instilling a sense of place. Having a meaningful, unifying brand identity cements that sense of place, that sense of home, not only to the current and future residents of the community for whom this will be home, but also to the entire local community and for all the companies involved.

For this particular project we have the honor of collaborating directly with BRIDGE Housing on Block X, the first development of Rebuild Potrero, BRIDGE Housing Corporation and HOPE SF project to redevelop the Potrero Terrace and Annex.

Earlier this month, we joined BRIDGE Housing to bring the first steps in developing this new community identity for the customers and community. I kicked off the event with an overview of how we develop the overall concept for the brand or the “personality” of the development itself and why this is vital to helping it ultimately integrate into the community. At this stage, we brought concept boards to help facilitate feedback and generate comments about the future, including: words that the community might associate with this community, logo styles and sign styles. The attendees, which included residents speaking English, Cantonese and Spanish, broke up into focus groups, first edited the words that described home and community to them, then collectively voted on words and styles that best captured their ideas. The feedback proved rich in meaning across the groups.

With this collaborative foundation, we will start to build identity options, including the words and visual elements reached in consensus, to bring back to the community for further development.

Through this process of research, feedback and refinement, we work to guide the true expression of home for Block X, its residents, its builder and the community at large so that we may provide an authentic sense of place.

More about the Potrero Redevelopment and Block X:

Rebuild Potero will preserve the cultural and economic diversity that makes San Francisco a great city, while replacing all 606 existing public housing units and integrate additional affordable and market-rate homes into the community. Amenities will include open space, local services, and retail opportunities.

The proposed master plan provides a development framework including street circulation, block layouts, building heights, open space amenities, and community facilities. Market rate and affordable blocks will be indistinguishable with the design of individual buildings guided by controls outlined in a Design for Development document. The project will be rebuilt in phases with the goal of minimizing displacement of existing residents.

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