601 W. Beech
SAN DIEGO, CA
TL 361 and TL 145 Update: Forge Development Partners Approved to Install Students Artists’ Façade Designs for its Essential Housing Projects
Forge Development Partners (Forge) is excited to announce the approval from the City of San
Francisco to install community-designed metal panel façades for Forge’s Essential Housing
Development projects, known as TL 361 and TL 145, located at 361 Turk Street and 145
Leavenworth Street in the Tenderloin neighborhood.
As part of Forge’s corporate commitment to community involvement and outreach and its
ongoing mission to foster innovation, art and beauty as an essential part of its Essential Housing
projects, Forge sponsored, through the Architectural Foundation of San Francisco (AFSF), an
invited design competition in late 2020, mid pandemic, calling on student artists from the Ruth
Asawa San Francisco School of the Arts to study the interconnectivity of the Tenderloin
community and express that in a unique design for the skin of each of the two buildings.
Eva Nusbaum-Faust
In an open public jury, including members of the local community and design professionals, two
students wowed the panel with their submissions. The winning façades were created by 11th
grader Eva Nusbaum-Faust and 12th grader Sofia Regenbogen. Nusbaum-Faust’s design was
inspired by her personal observations of the rich community of the Tenderloin she experienced
when she walked the neighborhood. Nusbaum-Faust noted she wanted to show the threads of
the community as interconnected hands and ribbons causing juror Del Seymour to comment
that the design captured the feeling of the Tenderloin where people reach down to help those
reaching up in a collaborative living community. Regenbogen’s design was inspired by the jazz
history of the Tenderloin. She discovered an empty lot near the development, now a public
park, that was once the jazz club called the Black Hawk. Miles Davis performed and recorded his
song “So What” at that club. Regenbogen found a rhythm in the patterns of the façade that
corresponded to the musical score. Her interpretation, reflected in contrasting circular wave
patterns, is based on the charts for that song .
Sofia Regenbogen
Del Seymour, known locally as the “Mayor of the Tenderloin,” stated, “This is the kind of
innovation we need to add dignity and beauty to essential housing in the Tenderloin. This art
captures the spirit of the Tenderloin as a place of music, art and community and is a lasting
tribute to the resilience and beauty of our past and future.”
Forge is using the student artists’ designs to help fulfill its art requirements for TL 361 and their
work reflects their artistic and design inspirations. Forge went ahead and applied the same art
criteria to TL 145 after seeing the wonderful work developed by the student artists.
Since being selected as winners, Nusbaum-Faust and Regenbogen have worked, through a
mentored program sponsored by AFSF, closely with world renowned architecture firm, Gensler
to transform their sculptural designs into a product that is ready for fabrication and installation
on the new buildings. The façades will be permanently installed when the TL 361 and TL 145
projects near completion in spring 2022. When complete, TL 361 and TL 145 will provide 240+
sustainable scaled-living units at price points that are affordable to middle income essential
workers of San Francisco.
District 11 California Senator Scott Weiner noted, “Art has always been at the heart of the
Tenderloin and these façades will be art at-scale that represents the community. I’m thrilled to
see them go up.”
Watch this space for updates and photos as this art project nears installation and completion