A Mid-Week Hygge Break in San Francisco

Walking around the floating garden

Sep 28, 2023

An aerial shot of Salesforce Transit Centre in San Francisco; photo credit by wirestock in Freepik

This is a mid-week reflection away from data, finance, and markets, which have been confusing lately. Are we getting into a recession, stagflation, or soft-landing? That is being put aside this afternoon as I took a “Hygge” break at the Salesforce Park in downtown San Francisco.

What is Hygge, first of all?

Hygge, pronounced as “hooga”, is a Danish word that originated in Norway and means “creating a warm atmosphere and enjoying the good things in life alone or with good people.” In the old Nordic meaning, hygge refers to “getting protected from the outside world.”

The word entered into the Oxford English Dictionary in 2017. A recent reading of the book “The Scandinavian Guide to Happiness” reminds me “Hygge” means different things to different people and is a broad concept even though it represents the small pleasures in life.

Anyone, when we slow down and retreat to a quieter space, we will have experienced hygge. It is neither an expensive nor exclusive activity.

So, here I am at the Salesforce Park.

Being called “a majesty to observe”, the Salesforce Rooftop Park, a public urban park, with its 5.4 acres of greenery, theatre, playgrounds, and cafes, is a hidden escape in the financial district of San Francisco.

The Park sits on top of the Salesforce Transit Centre, with the giant Salesforce Tower, a 1000 + foot office skyscraper, quietly but firmly looking upon it.

Along the Park is a half-a-mile loop of beautiful landscape filled with 600 trees, 16,000 plants, and 13 small botanical gardens with flora from different parts of the world. As you can imagine, dogs are not allowed in the Park.

The different gardens from California, Australia, Chilean, South African, Palm, Fog, Wetland, to Desert, etc. represent the different climatic conditions from drought to fog, desert to forest that exist in California.

When I was strolling along the loop today, I saw and heard people walking and discussing their AI projects, families bringing their kids to observe the plants or play in the kid’s playground, nearby office people taking a lunch break under the sun, and tourists appreciating the public art at the Transit Centre and the Park.

The ability to slow down and enjoy the natural environment is the practice of Hygge.

Relaxing amongst the bamboo trees or sheltering under the giant trees — your choice!

Play with the games in the “Recess Cart”, anyone?

The palm trees form a lively circle. The pipes in the garden collect waste water, which is treated and then irrigates the plants. All the plants in the park are part of the ecosystem to lower the surrounding air temperature.

When I came down from the garden through the giant escalators, my eyes got fixated on the beautiful art on the ground.

The planning of the public art on the Terrazzo floor of the Grand Hall of the Transit Centre was ten years in the making by artist Julie Chang, a Stanford Master graduate.

The San Francisco Arts Commission convinced the intergovernmental agency developing the Transit Centre to spend $4.75 million on public art, ranging from designed floors, and white lights, to interactive fountains.

Julie’s work is titled “The Secret Garden”.

Inspired by the region’s flora and fauna and diverse multicultural population, two of the most striking design elements in her design are vibrant and brightly hued poppies, which are the California state flower and jewel-toned hummingbirds, which are the state bird, highlighted by mirrored glass. Integrated into the design is a subtle overlay of icons and patterns executed as bronze inserts or filigreed patterns made from thin zinc divider strips, which are drawn from the rich tapestry of people and cultures across the Bay Area: flower-like circular rings from an Indian sari, cloud-like curves inspired by Chinese embroidery, Japanese crests, diamonds and chevrons found in a variety of sources including African textiles and Grecian pottery, and star and cross motifs from Islamic tiles.
~Americans for the Arts

There is also Jenny Holzer’s “White Light”, which “scrolls along a 182-foot-long LED screen that wraps the Grand Hall’s giant Light Column, displaying poetry and prose in 11-foot-high electronic text from writers including San Franciscans Maya Angelou and Harvey Milk.”