Student Innovation
Guerrilla Coffee Unit
The digital economy of San Francisco has brought unparalleled new opportunities, but also contributed to striking income inequity that has left many unable to participate. To counter this, the Guerrilla Coffee Unit refutes the high end café laden streets capes by creating a free urban kitchen table and sanctuary for the city’s growing homeless population. It creates a new safe space to converse, listen and tell stories and gives people a literal place to sit and a warm cup of coffee. It engages public space on sidewalks bound by the sit/lie ordinance (section 168 San Francisco Police Code) which forbids sitting or lying down on the sidewalk. The GCU is designed with recording equipment to collect narratives and is among a series of mobile objects fabricated by the students in the ARH 250 studio. As a tool for advocacy, the coffee unit has the potential to promote communication between the sheltered and the un-sheltered, and create community space, however small and transient.
Key Team Members
About the organization
As a design-build project, the Guerrilla Coffee Unit falls under the B.Lab (Building Lab) program in the Architecture Department at the Academy of Art University. B.Lab’s goal is to cultivate and foster a spirit of diversity, equity, and advocacy for future public practice among students.