Merit Award

Lands End Lookout

San Francisco, CA

Surfacedesign Inc.

Principal: James A Lord

Project Manager: Alain Peauroi

Designer: Nick Gotthardt

Client: Golden Gate National Parks Conservancy

The Lands End Lookout is the newest visitor center in the GGNRA. The new building and landscape design for the site protects the beautiful and rugged coastline of San Francisco, while making it more visible and accessible to visitors. Home to a unique combination of outdoor exhibits, view terraces and gathering spaces, the Lands End Lookout will recount the many stories of Lands End and the Sutro Baths and provide an improved visitor experience.

The Lookout is designed to frame the spectacular view of the ocean and ruins of the baths below. The building and its related outdoor spaces yield to the natural landscape allowing it to be the main focus while remaining firmly rooted to the rugged edge of the Pacific. The Lookout building stretches out to embrace the dunescape, evoking and expressing the evolution of the site and its vital and dynamic natural environment.