KQED Headquarters Renovation

A Place For Exchange

The renovation of KQED’s San Francisco-based headquarters reimagines the future of public media as a process intake, exchange, and redistribution; A platform for community convening, civic dialogue and content co-creation that nourishes the San Francisco Bay Area in every breath of its regenerative cycle. The relocated corner entry shifts KQED’s front door to a prominent new location in the neighborhood, opening up the concrete warehouse structure with a lifted diaphanous curtain wall façade that invites the community in. An expanded public lobby marks the entrance into this vibrant and inclusive place, from which redefined program spaces flow seamlessly in through every level. The silkscreened frit pattern of the diaphanous curtain wall highlights the transparency, accessibility, and dynamic nature of KQED by reflecting and refracting the light and activity that transform it with each daily cycle. The new roof terrace level marks the top of the lifted corner where expansive views look back out while looking forward, celebrating the connections, content and community enabled by this new place.

3D-printed curtain wall model (left) and 3D-printed study model of the lifted corner curtain wall facade and interior public lobby (right).

Full-scale acetate studies of frit glass silkscreen patterns and lighting effects.