San Francisco exhibition explores the "radical imagination" of Rael San Fratello
A structure made of bio-based thermoplastic and recycled broom heads is among the works featured in a mid-career retrospective of design studio Rael San Fratello at San Francisco's Yerba Buena Center for the Arts.
The exhibition, Rael San Fratello: Prototypes and Provocations, features a range of work by the Oakland-based studio, which was founded in 2002 by designers Virginia San Fratello and Ronald Rael.
Staged at the Yerba Buena Center for the Arts in downtown San Francisco, the show includes structures, objects, models, film and other elements. It is billed as "the most comprehensive presentation" of the studio's work to date.
Rael San Fratello is known for its material, experimental uses of 3D printing, and engagement with social and political issues.
"Rael San Fratello's work attests to the power of radical imagination grounded in humanistic values and an ethos of play and constant experimentation," said show curator René Morales.
"Blurring the boundaries between architecture and social practice, tradition and technology, poetics and activism, the studio envisions a better world at the same time that it seeks to develop the tools with which we may one day be able to construct for ourselves."
A centrepiece of the show is Sanctuary – a cylindrical structure 3D-printed on-site using a mixture of soil, straw and water. Visitors can walk around and enter the structure, which is topped with a mirrored inflatable orb.
"Sanctuary is made from humankind's oldest building material, constructed using emerging robotic technologies," said the studio.
The earthen walls of the structure are pierced with glass solar rods salvaged from Solyndra, a once-promising local manufacturer of solar panels that filed for bankruptcy in 2011.
"Raw earth has sheltered people for 10,000 years, and the Solyndra rods embedded in its walls point to the complexity of combining contemporary and traditional materials," the studio said.
"Bringing them together creates a space to contemplate what endures, what gets discarded, and what deserves a second chance."
The show includes a structure called The Workshop, which was commissioned by the arts centre.
It has a roof covered in broom heads that were sourced from an exhibition in Seoul, and undulating facades wrapped in biodegradeable thermoplastic – PLA filament – and small planter boxes.
The installation reflects the studio's broader interest in combining locally available and discarded materials with digital fabrication technologies.
A series of display tables show 3D-printed objects made from basic materials such as coffee grounds, Chardonnay grape skins and ash collected in the aftermath of the California wildfires.
Elsewhere, Teeter-Totter Wall, one of the studio's most recognised works, was placed on a white pedestal in front of a wall showing its deployment.
It consists of bright-pink seesaws that in 2019 were extended through openings in the US and Mexico border wall. People on opposite sides were able to interact while riding the seesaws.
"The work invited a playful, transnational exchange and garnered widespread attention as a powerful symbol of the possibility for connection across a deeply contested divide," said the Yerba Buena arts centre.
There were Tyvek coats that can be inflated to serve as temporary shelter, and REUNITE, a poster showing the silhouettes of two parents and a child running toward each other.
The latter project was created as an open-source, downloadable image that could be used in protests.
"Collectively, the works on view speak to Rael San Fratello's ongoing work to develop creative solutions to some of our most challenging social and political issues, while also pioneering ways to incorporate sustainable and often-times unexpected materials into their work," the museum said.
The firm's work includes a series of 3D-printed structures called Mud Frontiers, and a shed clad in hexagon-shaped tiles with openings for growing little succulents.
The photography is by Rael San Fratello.
Rael San Fratello: Prototypes and Provocations is on view from 25 September to 31 January 2027. For more exhibitions in architecture and design visit Dezeen Events Guide.
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