San Francisco, California, USA
Designed by Anderson Anderson Architecture, The Matchstick is an iconic building in the San Francisco area, which is environmentally friendly, aesthetically pleasing, and fire-resistant.
At the intersection of narrow, uniquely San Franciscan, mid-block alley-streets, amongst a chaotic mix of remaining low-rise buildings and dense new high rise construction, this small timber tower’s plan and programming create a significant new public nexus and pedestrian throughway.
The Matchstick’s design has been awarded a 2021 American Architecture Award from The Chicago Athenaeum and The European Centre for Architecture Art Design and Urban Studies.
This new mid-block alley programming supports the city’s planned network of new pedestrian alleys radiating outward from the Transbay Terminal into the surrounding SoMA District.
Timber construction, combined with recent and upcoming building code advances allow this project to embrace environmentally positive, carbon-sequestering, fire-resistant wood construction technologies in a taller urban building.
One hundred years ago, and well into the mid-twentieth century, the owner’s grandparents used the small building at the base of this project as their architectural lighting fabrication workshop.
Continuing the arts and crafts history of this community and building remains important to the owner, while her own career as a stage actor equally compels her interest in adding cultural programming and entertainment to her development plans.
As one of just a few remaining historical remnants of the light industrial neighborhood that is rapidly transforming into San Francisco’s busiest urban transit and highrise neighborhood, the city zoning, just as much as the owner, insists on retaining the original external presence of the building and its contextual integration with the string of historic buildings that are its street-level neighbors.
Combining all these factors of family, urban contribution, and technology advancement produce an unexpectedly tall, public embracing, alley-corner night-life arts machine, taking the form of a glowing wooden lantern shooting up from the back of a humble old lantern workshop.
We call it the Matchstick, but in fact, its heavy timber construction is highly fire-resistant.
This point is significant in its regional context, as the building from bottom to top tickles thoughts of inescapable California resonance: mineshaft descent into womb-like western bedrock, seeking gold, fearing liquefaction; Climbing boldly upward into future dreams, defying gravity and earthly stutter; Bathing in exotic local forest wood, inhaling fiery breezes, a cocktail glass reflecting soot-orange sunset; Strolling alleyways at night, in a romantic city, still fearful of darker corners; Alfresco rooftop chilling within the reassuring embrace of fear-calming, low carbon technologic architectural salvation; Dinner and a show, an urban stage rising from seductive alleyways, its glowing marquee crown surrounded by carpets of geometric street light rolling outward toward a shimmering bay rising fearsomely ever round us.
As a theater building, the shear core and other opaque walls and massive cantilevered soffit of the building continue the same facade glazing pattern, but with translucent glass covering full-surface LED signage.
At night, slowly scrolling marquee text announces the theater location and its offerings directly to the street below and to commuters passing by on overhead ramps.
Project: The Matchstick
Architects: Anderson Anderson Architecture
Client: Individual Family Foundation
Photographers: Ziang Ao
