Oyster Point Park

Oyster Point Park is a large but undeveloped public space in the City of South San Francisco with a 408-berth marina, 300-foot fishing pier, hiking and jogging trails, picnic amenities and a 2.5-acre sandy beach. In collaboration with James Corner Field Operations, Dreyfuss + Blackford’s approach to this new waterfront park centered on creating a series of sculptural and abstract objects in a developing landscape, which frames the unlikely pairing of a bayside marina and burgeoning biotech community.

Three restroom buildings are located along the edge of the Bay Trail and support public passive and active recreational uses within the park for marina-bound boaters, beach visitors, cyclists and walkers. The elemental building forms are round with battered and textured concrete walls, recalling the oyster barnacles that constitute the foundational geology of the site, its history, and its namesake. The buildings were conceived as artifacts of this often windblown landscape, with rooflines that blend into the surrounding park, whether being viewed from pedestrian level or from the high rise development nearby. Minimizing their impact on the land, yet withstanding the relentlessness of the environment in their material language of concrete, steel and weathered cedar, these structures are naturally ventilated and incorporate daylighting with limited LED lighting for nocturnal use by harbor tenants.