San Francisco Veterans Memorial

Creating a space for remembrance in the bustle of Civic Center

Civic Presence

The monument is intended to serve two purposes– to provide a civic presence and public recognition of veterans, and simultaneously an inner space for private contemplation and remembrance for visitors to the site.

Materiality and lighting

The material used for the monument is black basalt stone. A mockup is always a good place to start when working with a material that is challenging to light effectively – it lets you try out a lot of different approaches quickly to see what options are worth examining for cost and constructability.

The outer perimeter of the monument has flamed finish, which responds well to grazing light to reveal the rough texture.

For the inner cut with its polished finish, we wanted to use linear fixtures to differentiate it from the exterior, but found that a linear fixture with discrete point sources rather than a smooth diffuse lens did a better job of revealing the sparkle and grain in the stone.

Case Studies

During the design process, I had the opportunity to travel to Washington D.C., and used the opportunity to visit and study the lighting solutions employed at the Vietnam Veteran’s Memorial and Martin Luther King Jr. Memorial. The results of those site visits confirmed the approach we had decided on (and was also a pretty incredible experience on its own merits!).