Rael San Fratello retrospective opens in San Francisco

A structure 3D-printed from soil, straw and water, its earthen walls pierced with glass rods salvaged from a bankrupt solar manufacturer, anchors the most comprehensive presentation of Rael San Fratello's work to date.

The exhibition, Rael San Fratello: Prototypes and Provocations, runs at the Yerba Buena Center for the Arts in downtown San Francisco from 25 September to 31 January 2027. It gathers structures, objects, models and film from the Oakland-based studio founded in 2002 by designers Virginia San Fratello and Ronald Rael.

The studio is known for experimental uses of 3D printing and its 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."

Sanctuary leads the show

The centrepiece, Sanctuary, is a cylindrical structure 3D-printed on-site using a mixture of soil, straw and water. Visitors can walk around and enter it. A mirrored inflatable orb tops the form.

"Sanctuary is made from humankind's oldest building material, constructed using emerging robotic technologies," said the studio.

The earthen walls incorporate glass solar rods from Solyndra, a once-promising local solar panel manufacturer 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 Workshop and printed experiments

The show also includes The Workshop, commissioned by the arts centre. Its roof is covered in broom heads sourced from an exhibition in Seoul, while undulating facades are wrapped in biodegradable thermoplastic – PLA filament – and small planter boxes.

The installation reflects the studio's interest in combining locally available and discarded materials with digital fabrication.

A series of display tables shows 3D-printed objects made from coffee grounds, Chardonnay grape skins and ash collected after the California wildfires.

Teeter-Totter Wall and protest works

Teeter-Totter Wall, one of the studio's most recognised works, sits on a white pedestal in front of a wall showing its deployment. The bright-pink seesaws were extended through openings in the US-Mexico border wall in 2019, letting people on opposite sides interact while riding.

"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.

Elsewhere, the exhibition displays 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. REUNITE was created as an open-source, downloadable image for use 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 earlier work includes the Mud Frontiers series of 3D-printed structures and a shed clad in hexagon-shaped tiles with openings for growing succulents. Photography is by Rael San Fratello.