>> welcome to the san francisco historic preservation commission joint meeting between civic design committee of the arts commission and historic preservation commission. the commission does not tolerate any disruption or outbursts of any kind. silence any mobile devices that may sound during the hearing. when speaking before the commission, speak directly into the microphone. if you care so, speak drinkly into the microphone. roll call for the preservation commission. [roll call]

we expect commissioner johns to be absent. >> for civic design review committee. [roll call] we have a quorum of that committee. >> great. so the first item up on your agenda is special calendar item number 1, case 2017-009220ptacoa-02. san francisco public works and jcdecaux replacement of public toilets and kiosks. >> commissioner wolfram: before we start, welcome to the civic design committee. >> good afternoon. the item before you is review and comment for the replacement of public toilets and kiosks in

the public right-of-way and lots on rec and park department. the project proposes to remove and replace 25 public toilets and 114 kiosks located throughout san francisco. out of the total, six public toilets and 34 kiosks are within the boundaries of article 10 and 11 landmarks, landmark districts, and conversation districts, as outlined in your packet. the previous design was reviewed and approved by the arts commission on november 6, 2017. at its december 6, 2017, meeting, architect ual review provided comments. meeting notes are in your packets the a.r.c. identified three issues for the project to address. form and masting, contextural

relationship and civic center, coit tower and washington square park. following the public hearing, the proposal was redesigned. the redesign presented today was selected through an invite-only competition, which the project sponsor will explain in a more detailed presentation. the department believes the revised design addresses the comments of the a.r.c. and seeks the advice of the commission regarding the compatibility of design with secretary standards. staff has provided recommendations for commissioners' review and comment and comments at the a.r.c. hearing. in brief, these recommendations include, overall relationship with the surroundings, form and massing, and recommendations on materials and color the department is requesting commission's advice regarding

ex-terror -- exterior surface and colors. the project sponsor team has prepared a more detailed presentation. i would like to in rope to deuce beth rubenstein from public works. i'm available for any questions. this concludes my presentation. >> good afternoon, commissioners. i'm beth rubenstein, special projects s.f. public works and i'm thrilled to are here at such an historic joint hearing. we appreciate this is the first joint hearing and we're your first and only item. thank you so much for coming together. i will give you an overview of the project and then you will hear from jcdecaux and then the architects on the project. i look forward to our conversation. it's wonderful to have all of you together so we can have a

joint conversation. so for over 20 years, the city of san francisco has had a very productive partnership with jcdecaux. as you recall, in the 1990s, we entered into a 20-year contract with jcdecaux to supply public toilets for the city, in exchange for allowing them to have advertising income with 114 kiosks they would design, fabricate, install and maintain, daily maintain, 25 public toilets. this was the first project they did in the nation, our nation, and it was quite radical. there was a lot of pushback, if you recall. the idea of public toilets. but here we are 20 plus years later and they're a very important part of our city landscape and our, i think, civic culture, actually, and our belief and what we need for street furnishings to make it an inclusive city, inclusive and

supportive city. and so about two years ago, public works put out an r.f.p. for a new contract as the old one was expiring and jcdecaux won the contract again. and, as you recall, as natalia mentioned, last year, jcdecaux came before the commissions with an initial design. as natalia mentioned, arts commission approved the design around it began to go through the historic preservation commission. we got a good amount of feedback from the arts commission and architectural review committee. two of the map points public works heard from your commissions, board of supervisors and community members, we got feedback from design parameters, which i will talk about. and also, a lack of community process, though the designs wept through your commissions.

and we had very little public participation. there was a concern. at the beginning of this calendar year, public works looked at the project and tried to address the concerns. when jcdecaux went through the process, they were looking for a design that was background, quoting the last year's report, didn't want to attract attention to itself. when public works and communities looked at that, we decided it was reallial missed opportunity to think about these important street furnishings in that regard. instead of being background and trying not to call attention -- frankly, there's 25 plus 114, so they're very present. we could make them real amenities to the city, not only in terms of toilets and that program, but aesthetics. and in terms of being part of a

city, a city design. we're also seeing new civic structures like the cafe kiosks, for the cafe, and the new bart portals on market street. couldn't the jcdecaux toilets and kiosks be part of modern street furnishings? it's a long-term contract, so we want it to be forward-thinking, unique, innovative. so we took a different perspective on the design parameters. we designed a community process where we felt engaged and brought us the broadest, most diverse group of people. in partnership, jcdecaux and public works entered into -- this was in march, so not too long ago. it's been a quick winter and spring, entered into a streamline, invitation-only design competition. as the finalists, the winner,

would be decided by jcdecaux. after extensive outreach in the field and inhouse and with you commissioners, we came up with 12 industrial architectural design firms, all locally based, top of their field in the area, and also a diverse group. so there were many, large, in that they were small. there were many m.b.e. and w.e.b. firms in the mix. we also came up with a jury of 12, which half were city staff. one of the things that's been really important to us in this process is to work collaboratively with the other city agencies that are part of this process, that should be part of the process. like your two bodies, we wanted to work with the arts and historic preservation.

we have dan hodath from the port, which has been very important, and rec and park, our main city partners. half the jury was city staff and the other were outside experts, again, locally based architects who had been recommended way their peers. the process was really important to us, that the process was fair. and because of that, it was completely blind. so the participants didn't know the jury and vice versa. the proposals and the three finalists received an hon honorariam. they had a board to present. we wanted to use it for preservation. with the three finalists, we went to each of them and said,

this is why we love the project. in each case, it didn't quite match the design parameters. so we asked them to return with a second board that was closer. with the three boards, we went on a community outreach campaign. i would say that during that process, i spent a good amount of time reaching out to community groups across the city as well as c.b.d.s, just to let them know our process and say, hey, this project is back on-line. this is what we're doing. spent a lot of time doing that community outreach. with the three finalists boards, we did a press release. we got a lot of press from "the chronicle," "the examiner." we did an on-line survey, based on the san francisco arts commission survey model, which we really liked. and then we did an exhibition at the san francisco main library

and also the heart of the city farmers market talking to people. it was great to hear how many people care about architecture. as an architect, that's always heartwarming. we got over 200 responses, individual responses, about the design from both the oregn-line surveys and these, and we reached out to you to give you an update on the process and we talked to city staff and community groups. it was the most innovative, aspirational, and wanted to represent us 20 years out. it's projects that will be on our city streets for 15, 20 years, at least. the ones we have now, it's been 22, 23 years.

the responses were from 20 different zip codes. so it was a diverse mix. we heard that it was clean, safe, inviting, cultural, classic, and "wraps fluid beauty with function." so we're really happy to present the design to you and get your comments. i will introduce francois from jcdecaux, who has been an important city partner. this contract has been important to the city. through the funding it provides the new toilets and the staffing, so we're really happy about this partnership. thank you.

>> good afternoon. thank you, beth, for the introduction. we are very happy and pleased to be back with you. as a company, we've been at the fore front of innovation in the public space. we think it's important to take care of it. over the last years, 20 years, 40 years, things have changed. we see a lot of demand coming from the public. it is better bottom up than top down. we have to adapt.

we have to change. i think it's all of us that are trying to make the city a better place and how can we achieve that? our expertise is how do we connect services to the public. our clients are the city, but the users are the citizens or the visitors. so we think a lot about it. and we are not selling the services. we keep the maintenance. we are operators. so whatever is done on day one, we have to make sure that it would be functional, clean, something we can maintain in year two, year 10, whatever. as a company and with all our team around the country and the

world, it's always very complex between what you can see the first time and you would like and what can be built and maintained? so we have to take care of these from top to bottom over the years. so that's something that is thinking about it, back and forth, back and forth. but we're about to achieve it in san francisco for the last 20 plus years. the toilets have been walking nonstop for 20 years, 25 toilets, every single day. over the last 12 months, 800,000 people have used the bathrooms in san francisco. so more than the population of the city. innovation, the capital of innovation, in digital world, but we're living in the physical world and we believe that

innovation is about technology, data, digital, and we are big into it, but innovation is also social innovation. and that's what san francisco bought with the toilets in the last two years, thanks to public works with the attendant. so now we have attendants through a social program. they're controlling who is using the bathrooms and who can go in and that's been a change. sometimes some corners in the city are a little bit rough, socially challenging. and it doesn't matter what you have as a structure. if you don't have that, you need

that for people visiting especially to have a clean, safe place. so that social innovation. and then innovation in the process. and that's what we've been doing the last four, five months, when you ask us to go back and think again. so we went back to the drawing board and went through a process involving the commission at the same time, working with public works, going through the custom design and making progress. what we'll show you today is two models of public toilets and three models of kiosk. so we are far along on the publ public toilets.

we see there is some engineering to do, but we're close to it. on the kiosk, we have three kios kiosks. we had a big discussion about the -- this is still something that we're working on. so we'll show you some options that are more viable than the others. there is still a lot of engineering to be done. we don't want to mislead the city and the commission, the two commissions, i should say, but telling you it's a beautiful design, but three months down the road come back and say, we have to change the design. to my earlier comment, everything has to be tight, the usefulness of the service.

so that's my presentation. will be happy to answer any questions. thank you, again, for your time and consideration. >> commissioner wolfram: thank you. >> good afternoon, commissioners. i'm bill cates from smith group and i will walk you through the thought process from the original concept design and the process that beth outlined and bring you through that and talk about where we're at with these. as francois mentioned, it's the early stages, so we're engineering some of them. and some elements are further along than others and i will explain those as we go forward. with that, i will switch to this microphone? no? >> you can. we'll pick it up. >> can you hear me? >> yep. >> great. it's a rendering of the single restroom kiosk on market street.

we'll get back to that image in a minute. just want to start with the initial questions and concepts that we dealt with to come up with the solution in the office. and really we wanted to create a singular concept object that could deal with the varied neighborhoods in san francisco. it's happening in different locations in the city. our solution was to design transformative designs that had variations. you will see that when i get to them in a minute, so in some locations, the toilet kiosk can look one way and then adapt to the neighborhoods themselves. how can the kiosks reflect the rich history of the city while expressing concepts of technology and looking towards the future. our solution for that was a sculptural solution that merges nature and technology. we really feel that this is in many ways what asan francisco i

all about, embracing our environment, but embracing what is around us and being respectful of our history. we hope that the kiosks and toilets represent that. the third element, we want to create a design that's complex in its concept, but simple in terms of its maintenance and replacement and repair as necessary. our solution was to create a kit with the smallest amount of pieces as necessary. if something is destroyed or vandalized, it can be easily replaced over time. so the goal, as francois mentioned, to keep them running, as they have in the past. our team and our office, it's not just me and tyler who is with me, who designed this. it was a large group of people with all kinds of crazy, diverse

ideas that have come together. it's been a community design. equally important is that all of those people live in the city themselves and have been using and seeing and admiring these kiosks and what they can accomplish for the city. this image here, represents the board that we put together. this is the second-round board, that beth mentioned, that had all of our concepts and ideas combined. and i will break that out in the next couple of images to talk about the concepts and how they relate to the three questions that we were trying to answer during the process. there is a lot of collaborative work here and one of the steps of the process was a visit from both beth and francois in our office where the team came in and showed the sketches and concepts that led to the design itself and inspired by many different things, whether it's art, architecture, the way items

are drawn, the way that water can be reused in the relationship and in the growing landscape. so here you see, for example, the notion that i mentioned about variations in the city. on the left, you see the simple kiosk. as you look on the right, some have planting on top. some have trees adjacent. this was an ideas competition and we wanted to bring that home and collectively with these plus the kiosk create a story about the city and about sustainability. objects are meant to be sculptural for many reasons. one of them was to minimize their presence. in some cases, they bend in the middle to reduce the massing of

them. also reflectivity. the more curves and different shapes they are on the outside and the changing, it reflects different angles of what is happening around the city. so it's not a mirrored presence. you walk up and see your full reflection. the goal is that it abstracts it as an art piece itself. we're still looking at the exact nature of exterior material, texture and reflectivity. we'll work with that as we go forward in the process. constructability, as i mentioned, obviously working closely with francois and jcdecaux to build something that is buildable, maintainable, flexible. they're in the street. we understand the environment and understand the abuse of things that they will get. we want to be sure that they

hold up. and optimizing the size and make sure that a panel can be rotated, placed on the top, and the supply of replacement pieces can be as limited as possible. that was the initial concept. as we get into the parts and pieces, we're dealing with the realities of that and determining the parts and pieces to make them as maintainable as possible. in terms of materiality, there are many items in this that are really responses to maintainabili maintainability. we want it to be very strong as it touches the sidewalk and ground. and the areas that people reach and touch has different aspects of it. and above one's head, that can be a different concept. at the same time, being smart

about the durability of them from the ground up. we want to go through and start with the public toilets and work our way to the kiosks. the public toilets are the item we started with first in terms of the engineering process. and we're pretty far along with that. for memory's sake, to the right, represents the drawings of the existing restroom kiosks and then some photos of what they look like. here's some drawings that show you the single unit kiosk. there's a single toilet restroom kiosk and there's a double. there are no doubles out there now. that is being added to the mix in this process. here to the right, you see the elevations. the smaller elevation all the way to the right and then adjacent to that, the straight-on elevation of the long side. below it, you can see the plan.

and the undulating shape that wraps around that and to the left, quick, early rendering studies. i will click it and there's a change at the top. in the proper locations, there could be landscape on top of those. we've been looking at adding a skylight to the top of these so when you are inside, you get more natural light and it's less cavernous. so we want to make them a nice -- continue to develop the experience inside and make it a nicer experience. here's the double toilet solution. at the bottom right, you can see a plan at that. one is a.d.a. accessible and the other is not.

it's a wider unit, but still has the same curves and shape for the most part as the single toilet. also, the notion of having the skylight and planting at the top is both of those. so we're working on the exact details of these. we've looked at the curvature and relation to a.d.a. and people walking by, developing the signage and integrating it and making sure that the functional elements are integrated with the form, so it's a seamless process. those things we're still working on. all the things that you would expect to happen here, but still maintaining the initial concept and shape of the project. here's a rendering just done showing the single toilet and how it would look on market street. with that, i will hop over to

the kiosks. as francois mentioned, we're really in the thick of developing these. it's a much earlier phase. there are three types of kiosks on the street. there's the retail version, which opens up. there's the advertising kiosk that just has print ads on them. the future version of those will have the ability to have l.e.d. electronic images. and the third, one that is an interactive kiosk with the ability for touch screen interactions. the bottom image you see, represents the existing interactive and the one above that represents the current retail version. right now, you see the existing retail version and then we have three different solutions that we're still developing. there are different variations that affect the size or

circumference or width of these on the sidewalk. we're dealing with the mechanisms inside and the addition of the l.e.d. screens, it involves more meat inside, for lack of a better word, to make sure that they're easy to open and maintain and adjust during the process. all of these are important to consider as we develop the design. also, we're charged with placing these on the existing foundations. so getting that to work, as you can obviously tell, there's a round foundation with the existing kiosks and we have a three-sided kiosk that will take its place. so it's the age old, triangular peg in a round hole situation that we're dealing with. we're working to develop that, that has tied into the toilets the same, reflective material, same base at the bottom and then the curvature that will have a

relationship to those. so it really is a family of elements on the street that tie into the development of these amenities in the city. the next three, and it's one of those things, where it's hard to tell the difference, but we're dealing with the subtleties of the first one here, to the next one of dealing with the curvature of the corners of the elements, keeping them as tight and small as possible, understanding that every inch on the sidewalk is sacred and used by many different people and we want to make sure that these live up to that. there are slight variations in curvature and the relationship of top to bottom that we'll continue to develop as we move forward. with that, i don't know if there is something else you want to say, but we can open it up for

discussion. >> commissioner wolfram: thank you very much. let's start with public comment, so we can get that -- any comments from the public? if any member of the public wishes to speak, you will have 3 minutes and there's a 30-second warning buzzer before your time is up. >> thank you very much. a couple of things -- thank you very much. i'm stan hayes and i'm co-chair of zoning and planning for hill dwellers. this is very important. it's a once in a generation decision. the choice of the next design, you can frame our perception of it for the next 20 years. and, like you, we want these designs to be a success. for that to happen, there are several criteria 7 -- of design.

it needs to evoke the history of san francisco. it needs to reinforce location context. it needs to improve on current designs and not be arguably worse. it should not be hard-edged and too urbanized or so generic at its core that it could be anywhere. and we think that the design before you as it currently sits does not meet these criteria adequately, especially in areas that are of historic and heritage context like coit tower and washington square and north beach, which is why we urge you to further expand your design choices to keep looking. and if you feel it's necessary to go back to the drawing board and rethink the process a little bit, maybe even to reconsider, a fresh version of designs that

are currently used. and we understand that while those toilets and kiosks are aging and many of them in need of repair, their design successfully evokes a sense of san francisco's history and heritage. perhaps refurbishment is needed and not replacement. in any event, we hope that you will consider this issue, continue to find variations on what you've got before you and perhaps look even further out and define designs that are not even on the table at this point. thank you very much and good luck. >> commissioner wolfram: thank you. does any other member of the public wish to comment on this item? if so, please come forward. seeing and hearing none, we'll close public comment. commissioners, i only have the ability for members of my commission to do requests to speak, so i'm not sure how we'll organize this in an orderly fashion. normally we push our buttons and i call members in order and we

don't talk over each other. >> how about we raise hands and arms? >> commissioner wolfram: that will work. first of all, opening comments, i'm very thankful to the city and jcdecaux for organizing this competition. we're thrilled to see the design thinking that's gun to date. i think it's been a really great process that you have taken so seriously. commissioner johnck. yoip>> justin: -->> commissioner johnck: i am excited to have this discussion. i want to thank you for your efforts and i think it's been a success story. i remember the brouhaha over the idea of having public toilets on the street. and i will say -- and this leads to my question and my interest in durability. looking at the aesthetics and

the design features, that's certainly of interest, but i'm interested in the durability and the material aspect of it, of the selection. and this leads me to, as i say, the successful continuance of the toilets and the kiosks on the streets. and i guess my question -- my first question is, i haven't seen any graffiti or any exterior damage to the assemblage. [inaudible] >> jcdecaux maintains them. >> commissioner johnck: to me, i like the current design. it's historic. so as we -- if we move away from that, i would be interested in either hearing more about how

much damage that you've had to correct on the exterior, versus what i'm worried about, seeing this material here and worrying about graffiti and vandalism. so that's the tenor of my comments. >> commissioner wolfram: maybe you can address that question. >> again, francois with jcdecaux. thank you for the comments and the question. when we build and we engineer, it's done for maintenance and future use. in san francisco, we have a dedicated team working seven days a week, two shifts, and we have graffiti and vandalism, but we respond pretty fast, and maybe that's why you don't see it. [laughter] >> commissioner johnck: okay. well --

>> commissioner wolfram: doing a good job. >> it's a lot of work. we spend a lot of time. it's like any organization, it's operations, so you train your team and your supervisors. you have me running around and taking pictures and calling the office. that's something that we do all the time, seven days a week. so if the unit is fairly well built and you have the processes in place, so you are able to respond very fast. two weeks ago, a car drove into the case of a kiosk. the base is cast iron, so it's impossible to mold the cast iron overnight. but we have spare parts in the warehouse for 20 years. that was only two weeks ago. at fisherman's wharf, somebody lit a fire inside the unit.

it's a condition -- concrete shell, you open it and it's black. you feel like it's the end of the world. no. we have our team and we sent three guys and the concrete is p polished. you get it back, and you are back in business. you can get that only if you have a commitment and a team working on a day-to-day basis. otherwise, it's not working. i think the belief was to get the more contemporary design, more modern, to reflect today's san francisco. so that's where we went to the design. so it's not generic. it's well thought out. and we think we have something.

but we want to listen to your comments and see how we can adjust and adapt. >> commissioner wolfram: thank you. i want to clarify for the members of the historic preservation commission. we should be looking at this through a lens that we'll be granted certificates of appropriateness to the kiosks and toilets in historic districts. it's a reasonable question to ask about maintenance and durability, but we need to focus or lens not on personal opinion whether we like or don't like it, but if they can be compatible in the historic districts that they will be placed. that's an important position. i had a couple of questions for the design team. what is determining the height of the toilet structures? it looks like there's quite a lot of space in the top. then the second question, and maybe you said this, but is there any reason that the kiosks can't be round, the advertising

kiosks? two questions for the designer at the jcdecaux team. >> this is my opportunity. i've been working on this with bill. the space above the toilets, the true maximum height of these is dictated by transport of them on day one. so they have to fit underneath muni overhead wires and cables, wall being on a low-slung truck, which sets us at about 12 feet. the height there, part of it is a function of trying to maintain the exterior cladding being identical. so the one that you see -- in the image that you were seeing, the bottom 18 inches or so is a concrete base, because that's where most of the abuse is. it's where you kick it, the cart runs into it.

it gets really abused. the next 5 1/2 feet, which goes up to the head of the door, is metallic and really where you will get the most of the graffiti, because it's at writing level. and there's a texture on it to prevent stickers and larger graffiti pieces on it. we're working on the exact dim he shuns -- dimensions and sizes. the two panels are almost identical, so that jcdecaux can stock one panel. it goes this way or you turn it over and it goes like this. it's a little shorter and roof works a little different, but generically, the same panel, so they wouldn't have to stock as many for replacement over 20 years. there's the door mechanism infrastructure up there because the doors are sliding and there are motors to get that to work. there's a skylight

infrastructure and reserving space up there that could be a greenery on top of the roof. what was your first question? >> commissioner wolfram: the round. they're round now. the question was, why are you moving to a triangle? is it impossible to do a round kios kiosk. >> there's a desire to have l.e.d. advertising modules and those are ideally flat. one of the options that we showed you is in that realm where the glass exterior cladding is not necessarily aligning with the panel behind it. it's a geometric exercise, square peg, round hole to, get that minimized as much as

possible. the square footage of advertising on the kiosk is dictated in the jcdecaux and public works contact. it's trying to get the correct width of a flat panel l.e.d., getting three of them in a triangle and wrapping it with a circle, it becomes enormous. so it's geometric, freshman-level geometry. [laughter] >> commissioner wolfram: thank you. very helpful. >> commissioner woolford: last week, commissioner schnair and i met with you for an informal. and it appears that there may be detailed differences between what you shared with us last week and what we are looking at today and can you explain those and why we're seeing a change?

a couple of for examples. in the single-unit toilet, which is essentially, a double camber cylinder with a concave web that intercepts them, it appeared that last week it was a deeper concave section and it's shallower now. and some of the details on the kiosks appear slightly different. and we would like to understand the changes. >> sure. the toilet kiosk has not changed. it's the exact, same shape we had before. it might be the appearance of the renderings, but it's the exact, same shape. the kiosks, we have changed, and we're searching for the right dimensions and curvature. so while one of the three elements looks similar to what we showed you, we're working through that.

and it basically represents the strugg struggle of the shape. so we're still wrestling with it. instead of not showing anything, it was important to show where we're at and talk about the issues we're struggling with and because it's so early, we will be back to talk about that. we heard the comments about the desired shape in relation to the toilet kiosk. we're trying to hold true to that while dealing with the specifics of the functioning kiosk. >> commissioner woolford: in the competition scheme, was the concave area between them deeper? maybe it's through rendering, but they appeared to be more clearly described as two

columns, and now in the render, it appears to be -- >> i will check on that. we've made modifications, but it's critical that it be as deep as we can get it. from the competition scheme, what we're showing here, what had to do with the a.d.a. staff and talked about the exact curvature of the elements, we're dealing with projection over the sidewalk. but we can look at the comparison, knowing that what we're showing you here is what we have a couple of days ago. if the goal is to continue to -- the deeper that is, the more it breaks up the massing.

and that's very important to us. we can continue to struggle to emphasize that more if you feel like it's getting to the point where it's not strong enough. >> commissioner woolford: in the rendering on the cover, it looks more than the vertical columns with a concave web. >> okay. >> if i may, inside, we have the minimum dimension for a.d.a. so we cannot go in. on the outside, most of the units have the curve. so we have to maintain from the edge, from the outside edge of the toilets. we have to maintain a minimum of 18 inches on that edge to the face of the curve. so in the design competition, we

tried to keep the spirit, but we have to deal with reality to see how mechanically it can work. so we push it to the maximum as we understand it today. what we showed last week is exactly the same as today. maybe the rendering, maybe the lighting, can be adjusted. >> commissioner wolfram: nip further comments? >> commissioner sadin schnair: a couple of comments. i know when we had our informal meeting, the reflective panels we discussed about the different materials. i know you are still working on that. one of the things, though, i think is important to consider is because you have the curvature, the reflective quality, on these major thoroughfares, is something to just be aware of in terms of --

from a safety standards and issues that way. so i wanted to be on the record saying that as we move forward and we work on bringing different materials and stuff, that we keep that very much in the fore front. i know the concept is reflective. but there's a way it do reflective on curves without it being glaring. i know you are aware of that, but i wanted to state that. also, i'm wondering about the durability of the curved doors on the bathrooms because they're on tracks and stuff. if you could speak to that. >> francois, jcdecaux. the existing units we have today have curved panels. the door is curved. it swings in, but it looks like it's sliding in, but

technically, it swings in. if we have 13 million usages plus, it means that they almost 13 million, so 26 million times. and still working, so it's kind of overbuilt. it's a concern, but we -- technique that we are using today and it's engineering that we have developed and we used, so we feel comfortable that we will be able to have a curved design like the one we're showing today that we work with over time and maintain as well. >> commissioner wolfram: commissioner pearlman? >> commissioner pearlman: thank you. i'm a member of the architectural review committee. i want to congratulate you on the amazing distance you have come from what i call the toaster or the bus and the earlier designs.

i was in paris recently and just this morning i found this picture of a street piece in paris from what looks like the 1930s. i was amazed at how similar in essence the concept was to both what we have now and sort of harkening to the direction you've gone. this has classical columns and things, but it's very modernist, 1930s element, that landed on the streets of paris, at a time when the streets of paris still to this day, of course, are very classical and must have been quite a shocking contrast between the modernism of something that looked like this and the buildings that were -- that it was next to. and i will be a little all over the map, because when i saw this design, when this came out, at

first, i was very reactive to it. partially, i think, because of the materials. i thought that, you know, this looks extremely shiny, mirror-like, which i thought would be very, both, dangerous, because you get the sun glare, as well as not really appropriate in historic districts, where, you know, you will be distorting the imagery of the buildings that are sitting near it. so i am pleased to see this response because clearly this is significantly less mirror-like and still has a shininess, a sparkle to it, but does not have that kind of concern that was just mentioned. so i'm much more in line with this. i think in general, it's -- you know, i mean, this is a very good image.

we have a fairly important building over here, the old emporium store, at the west side -- westfield mall, and one of the significant san francisco architects. so there's a good image to look at relative to our charge of how will this feel relative to historic districts. i thought it was interesting, mr. hayes talking about the criteria that they looked at and the first one says, evoke the history and heritage of san francisco. and it's an interesting thing, because the question is, should something that's a 21st century element that we're putting on the streets significantly be historical? you know, we've done that. that's what's there now. we have the false historicism. because i started exactly where mr. hayes is. what's wrong with what we have

now? we've gotten used to them. they're handsome. they kind of disappear because we're used to them, but then it appears that cities change and grow and clearly there are reasons why we're looking at a new design at this point. should that design be historical or should it be something that -- you know, we have a 21st century city. we're a tech city. we're firmly in the 21st century. and is that appropriate? at first, i was resistive to it. and i've really, actually, come a long way in my own thinking that this -- that this could fit in quite well. i don't think it's, you know -- and, actually, the fact that it is different and it is sculptural and it is kind of a stand-alone object makes it better relative to the historic

fabric of the city. every time i travel to europe, when we see historical building and setting and new, modern building in it, there's no efforts in places like barcelona or paris to necessarily, you know, kind of try to relate. but for the most part, you have a modern building in a setting that might be historic. i think it makes sense, because it enhances both. you see both, as opposed to one disappearing or one being imitative, which i don't think is appropriate. so, you know, i think this has come a long way. and i think that is -- that is an appropriate response. it's brilliant, the design, relative to the parts, the kit of parts. i mean, i had a professor 30

some odd years ago that talks about kit of parts. i had a studio, where we had to try to figure that out. and i know how challenging that is. it's easier now with machines and 3d printing but still i know how challenging it is to come up with a design that's functional and aesthetic and maintenance as well as having four parts or five parts that fit. so that was challenging and brilliant. the one thing that i don't really understand or get is the need for the nature as part of this. it seems so strangely disassociated to have some plants on the roof. it will be a maintenance nightmare to keep the plants on the roof, especially the ones with a tree that you can only get to by going up 13 feet in the air. and seems a little odd to me that you would have a tree on

top of a toilet. it doesn't seem to make sense to me. even the bench element that you've shown in this rendering and you show it as a part, it looks like a potty that you get in the hospital because you can't get out of your bed. that's literally it looks like to me. maybe that's appropriate. but i don't think any of that is necessary to do their job and fit in well with the districts. overall, i think it could be a very nice amenity. and obviously each one will have to be evaluated when it comes to us relative to where it's located and we would take another look. thank you. >> commissioner wolfram: thank you. >> i'm beth rubenstein from san

francisco public works. i wanted to address your question around the vegetation. when we -- the first go-around with the competition, a major part of the design was the tree on the roof and it was a wow factor. and i think it's -- it was an interesting conversation with the jury that people were wowed by it, but they were like, it can't be built. we can't do this. what we heard is that theres with a real interesting connection and it was a sculptural, modern object. and the way we want to pursue it, because it's really not -- jcdecaux will say it's not feasible to put a tree on the roof. lots of reasons why a tree on the roof can't work, but we have talked about using