Origniating from works such as Holocene Terrace, 1999, Holocene Passage, 2002 and Original Depositional Environment, 2002, Study: Original Depositional/Aesthetic Environment/YBCA, and a Yerba Buena Complex-like geologic museum site study was proposed for BAN5, and not carried forward due to cost and time constraints, a similar algae intervention for the skylights at the San Francisco Art Institute gallery was proposed for the exhibition, We Remember the Sun, 2008. Study: Original Depositional/Aesthetic Environment/YBCA, is similar to it's antecedants but differes slightly from the eventual Yerba Buena Complex Phase I installation for BAN5, in that the living green (algae) element refered to the original depositional environment of the site's architectural materials through a botanical symbol and not a deep marine or limnological environment. As a living system it was intended to be a human-aesthetic protagonist, nature-reliant (sun) structure that would float above, removed, yet related to the aesthetic machinations being carried out in the exhibition below.

The algae's green aura would interact with the exhibition optically and photsynthetically, it's green "effect" conditional to natural systems. Similar interventions are being studied for other aesthetic/skylit situations such as SFMOMA and the deYoung Museum. Like the Yerba Buena Complex project, an analysis or actual material presence of the geologic structures that the site's architecture rests and completes (in Anthropocene terms) would be presented at the physically lowest level avaialble, to complete the stratigraphic sequence of nature :: aesthetics :: nature.

The other studies presented here, represent one of many variations examined for Yerba Buena Complex Phase I. A linear/stratigraphic treatment shown above has probably the strongest conceptual resonance to the Anthropocene issue and bringing the YBCA architecture into its context. The mapping of the Deep Gradient/Suspect Terrain.., ship form onto the building was finally decided upon for cost/labor reasons and readability. Another reference for this aesthetic may be site: the hypothetically more image/narrative-based imagination of the Northern California audience, where the more formal, stratigraphic and enveloping option would resonate more with a more formal audience, perhaps NYC, for example.