Overview

This project uses maps and photography to tie historical research to city design, treating the sidewalks of San Francisco and the wider Bay Area as a living document rather than a fixed plan. By layering historical cartography with present-day street photography, the study traces how sidewalks, playgrounds, murals, and storefronts carry the imprint of the people who move through them. It asks how art (painted hopscotch courts, murals, sidewalk chalk) can represent living identities in cities, and how people use the street as language: what those ephemeral marks reveal about who a neighborhood is designed for and who it belongs to now.