The name “Silicon Valley” usually evokes tech booms and electronic empires. But, Silicon Valley offers a depth beyond this that is frequently unseen. In partnership with ZERO1, SPUR and Hipstamatic invite you to go behind the digital veil with some of the Bay Area’s top photographers. Their interpretation of the theme of the 2012 ZERO1 Biennial, Seeking Silicon Valley, proposes that contemporary art practices can…

Ocean Beach, one of the gems of the San Francisco landscape, is 3.5 miles of sand and rugged coastline that functions as a national park, a popular urban open space, a major infrastructure complex and a beloved landscape. But the beach faces severe erosion, complex jurisdictional challenges, a diverse population of users and the looming challenge of climate-related sea level rise. SPUR’s newest exhibition celebrates the Ocean…

Join SPUR for the opening of a new exhibition of design work developed by a group of UC Berkeley Master of Landscape Architecture students, under the direction of Professor Judith Stilgenbauer. The project sites — each the approximate area of a medium-sized urban park — explore site- and program-specific ways of combining time, process, ecology, and placemaking — ideas oftentimes considered to be divergent…

When a major earthquake strikes the Bay Area, the lives of San Franciscans will be enormously disrupted, and it could take months to reestablish essential services. San Francisco has a limited number of emergency-shelter beds, and its capacity to provide interim housing after an earthquake is constrained due to low vacancy rates and minimal vacant land. Estimates show that only 75 percent of the city’s…

In 2015, Market Street will be remade as the culmination of a four-year public process called the Better Market Street Project. Reclaim Market Street!, created by the Studio for Urban Projects, augments this ongoing community program by staging a series of interventions that engage the public in changing the street. Accompanying these events is an exhibition at SPUR that provides context for these pilot projects…

“STREET LIFE | YERBA BUENA: a community design initiative” will unveil a road map for ten years of improvements to the streets, alleys, parks and plazas of San Francisco’s Yerba Buena district. The exhibition, at the SPUR Urban Center Gallery, will introduce the recommendations of the Yerba Buena Street Life Plan, a community design initiative sponsored by the Yerba Buena Community Benefit District. The exhibition’s…