Portland State University has selected Bionic to participate in the next phase of the Place Matters Design Competition, which seeks innovative placemaking concepts for the PSU campus. The Bionic team includes Portland-based architecture firm Office 52, placemaking experts RSM Design, public art studio Futureforms, civil engineer Humber Design Group, and a group of local Portland advisors.

The two other teams advancing to the final stage of the competition are BIG + PLACE, a Danish design firm working in collaboration with a Portland-based landscape architecture firm; and Walker Macy Collaborative, a Portland-based landscape architect teaming with Henneberry Eddy Architects and other local organizations.

The teams will submit their final designs in May 2024.

The project breathes new life into Sunnyvale’s downtown core with streetscapes, plazas, shared streets, and a signature public park designed around a historic redwood grove.

The new 10-acre life science campus overlooks the Pacific Ocean in San Diego. The design provides a variety of outdoor amenity spaces set within a landscape of native chaparral plantings. With multiple acres built over structure, the project combines construction and horticultural technology to create a large-scale immersive landscape.

Chiron Plaza lies at the heart of Emery Yards, a new life sciences campus in downtown Emeryville.

The 13-acre park is centrally located at the confluence of the San Lorenzo River and Branciforte Creek in downtown Santa Cruz. Bionic will embark on an extensive public engagement process to help forge a new vision for this iconic public space.

Peter joined Bionic in 2012, and has played a key role in designing and implementing projects varying in scale from a parklet in San Francisco to the 24-acre LinkedIn Middlefield campus in Mountain View. Peter specializes in developing innovative design approaches for open spaces, campuses and workplaces. His extensive experience with on-structure projects includes the CityLine mixed-used development in Sunnyvale and the Adobe North Tower in San Jose. He is currently managing the design and construction of a new life science campus adjacent to the Millbrae BART Station.

Bionic has promoted Sarah Moos Thompson to the position of Associate Principal. Sarah has worked with Bionic since 2012 and has spearheaded the management, design, and technical execution of a wide variety of projects. Her focus on strategy and clearly communicating goals helps clients navigate complex projects through entitlements and delivery. Sarah has lent her unique expertise in living shorelines and flood resilience to projects such as the India Basin Waterfront Park and the Resilient By Design Bay Area Challenge, which won a 2019 ASLA Award for the project’s extensive community engagement process. She is currently leading the public realm design for the BMR Center for Innovation, a life science campus in Emeryville; and a flood resilience open space project for the San Francisco Public Utilities Commission.

2020 was a year for new commissions and building projects. Here is the replay… 

Designed as a prominent downtown San Jose landmark, the 20-story office tower’s facade, roof terraces, and streetscape are designed to attract high-value building users, create an active pedestrian experience, provide quality outdoor access with bay vistas, and offer post-pandemic strategies throughout the project for workplace safety.

Downtown San Jose office tower unveiled, contains coronavirus-era features

As the effects of  COVID-19 continue to evolve, we wanted to let you know what we are doing at Bionic to keep our staff safe and healthy, and how we have prepared to create project continuity for our collaborators and our clients. In the past few weeks we limited in person meetings, held no in office meetings,  established a communication platform for this specific issue, and as of 3/16 our full staff is working remotely.  Bionic has also invested heavily in our digital infrastructure and communications tools which include:

• A secure virtual private network for access to our data and digital resources
• Virtual desktop applications
• Redundant file transfer and messaging software platforms
• Multiple video conferencing platforms
• Cloud based accounting and time tracking software
• Touch / Draw screen Laptops for real time collaboration and drawing markups

Each of our employees has access to these resources and we have conducted full scale tests with our entire staff working remotely. We will maintain regular business hours and we are all working diligently to create a smooth transition for our projects and clients in this time where everyone is adjusting. Please feel free to reach out to us if there is something that you need.  We are prepared and here for you.

Bionic is leading the landscape and public realm design for CityLine, a multi-block district in Sunnyvale, CA. The mixed use development will be centered around a grove of existing redwood trees in a new iconic public park. Client: Hunter Storm, Sares Regis. Collaborators: Gensler, Heller Manus, Ankrom Moisan, SGPA.

Bionic is pleased to announce winning the ASLA Award of Excellence for The FloMo.

The FloMo is a Trojan Horse to deliver a message of awareness and unity to a community of immigrants and businesses that are at risk of displacement or devastation by flooding and sea level rise.

The canal district in San Rafael California is home to a community of thousands of immigrants. Their community it tight knit, hardworking, and interdependent with a strong social structure. They are the workforce of the bay area, and critical to the regional economy; they live in an area below sea level and thinly protected by aging pumps and levees. A single flood event would devastate the community and its social cohesion. In time the whole community will inevitably be displaced by sea level rise if nothing is done.

Fun, informative, relatable, and bi-lingual the FloMo delivers a profound and simple message about climate change and flooding.

10 acre site designed to integrate a new R&D facility with existing seasonal wetlands and public access in construction in Dublin, CA. Client: Zeiss

1100 Broadway, designed to restore a historic Key System building and add a new high-rise office and commercial tower on a blighted corner in downtown Oakland, is in construction. Bionic led the design of the streetscape and roof decks.

Bionic was selected as the lead landscape architect to design the streetscape, public realm, and on-structure landscapes for the new Adobe Tower in San Jose, CA. Collaborators: Gensler.

Bionic selected to be the lead landscape architect for the streetscape, public realm, and interface with the Guadalupe River for a new office complex in downtown San Jose, CA. Client: Boston Properties. Collaborators: KPF

Marcel Wilson, Design Director, invited to deliver a lecture at the University of Pennsylvania, school of design about Bionic’s approach to the practice and current projects including the India Basin waterfront development in San Francisco, Almaden Offices in San Jose, Adobe Campus in San Jose, 1100 Broadway new construction in Oakland, 1532 Harrison multi-family infill housing in SF, public coastal access system in Malibu, among others. Other lecturers in the series included Susannah Drake, Matthias Hollwich, Elizabeth Diller, and Farshid Moussavi, among others.

The BionicTeam presented their final proposal for San Rafael on May 17th. “Elevate San Rafael” is a new paradigm for responding to complex environmental change and simply what needs to be done: occupy higher elevations and raise the quality of life and social connection for everyone. It proposes evolving the city by combining time-tested approaches to coastal adaptation with a moral, financial, and infrastructural agenda for large-scale adaptation. The BionicTeam was recognized for their attention drawn to immediate flood risk and impressive community engagement effort. (Image // San Rafael as regional infrastructure for more resilient Bay Area metropolis)

Bionic received honor awards for 3 projects in the annual ASLA NCC awards program: 3rd Street Flashlight, India Basin, and the LinkedIn Middlefield Campus.
3rd Street Flashlight:  Commissioned by a design museum, the flashlight claimed space from a busy street to create a safe place for people, social interaction, and events in a rapidly transforming postindustrial district.
India Basin: Embodying a commitment to sustainable placemaking, the India Basin project proposes the transformation of acres of former industrial lands on San Francisco’s bay into an active waterfront destination and a vibrant, diverse village.
LinkedIn Middlefield Campus: Designed to accomplish ambitious and future focused ecological and social objectives, the LinkedIn campus rejects the ubiquitous recipe for suburban tech workplaces. (Image // 3rd Street Flashlight, LinkedIn at night, India Basin urban village)

San Rafael is fascinating because the life, culture, and commerce of the city is specific to the physical features of the place. It is also clear that the social network is there today, and it is perhaps San Rafael’s greatest asset in the face of this grand challenge. The Design Phase is an opportunity to understand this force and lend our expertise to help it grow. (Image // San Rafael Creek)

Bionic developed and led an extensive community process that culminated in the Conceptual Urban Design Proposal for the Loop. Located on the Potrero Hill / Mission border—under, around, over, and beside the 101 Highway—the Loop will transform an area that presents serious fire, life, safety, and health hazards into an urban park. (Image // the Loop Conceptual Plan)

Awarded by Curbed’s annual awards program that honors architects who are making innovative work that’s changing the way the world functions, “the San Francisco firm specializes in projects that are juicy, brainy, and—in some cases—seemingly impossible.” (Image // Marcel Wilson and Bionic project “Third Street Flashlight”)

LinkedIn Maude Campus construction complete and open to the public. The LinkedIn Maude Campus modernized a suburban plaza for a global technology company. The project was designed to not only maximize outdoor dining areas and ease of circulation between buildings, but also to host native ecologies. (Image // Planting in Summer)

Bionic received the CitiesAlive Award of Excellence for Intensive Industrial and Commercial Green Roof for the Tech Deck in Mountain View, Ca. Designed to enable collaboration, social interaction, and ecological performance. (Image // Planting in Summer)

Construction complete at LinkedIn’s new Middlefield Campus in Mountain View, Ca. Designed to accomplish ambitious and future focused ecological and social objectives, the campus rejects the ubiquitous recipe for suburban tech workplaces. The site is designed to promote public interaction, diverse ecologies, mobility, and year-round comfort. (Image // Campus at night)

Bionic has been selected from an international search to lead a team in the San Francisco Bay Area Challenge on resiliency and sea level rise. The BionicTeam was selected for its distinctly different proposition to compound large scale value through early adaptation. The team unites an elite group of professionals positioned to design, finance, and implement complex Bay Area projects. Internationally recognized as innovative designers and influencers, team leaders Bionic, WXY, PennDesign, and Michael Yarne form a potent combination of urban invention. The team is an exciting collaboration and includes experts with deep Bay Area knowledge and relationships with its communities: Enterprise, Moffatt & Nichol, WRA, RMA, SF State, Baycat, Studio for Urban Projects, Ball & Winter, KMA. (Image // 6-12” sea level rise)

Marcel Wilson, design director, was invited by the Landscape Architecture Foundation to join a distinct group of international thinkers and influencers to craft a new mandate for the landscape architecture profession that charges landscape architects with effecting real world change. (Image // Marcel Wilson, Karen M’Closkey, Adrian McGregor, Andrea Hansen, Liat Margolis)