William Scott believes in the transformative power of architecture. Praise Frisco, his wide-ranging urban proposal for the future of San Francisco, centers ideas of rebirth and renewal through new building projects that address issues of housing, community, and care. Scott presents his ideas through paintings and drawings, hand-built models, and, increasingly, digital drawing software. Like many civic-minded citizens, he dares to imagine a safer and more equitable urban fabric. His concerns are rooted in his personal history, having grown up witnessing violence and crime in the Hunters Point neighborhood of San Francisco, and in pervasive issues such as homelessness and a lack of investment in infrastructure.
William Scott in his studio, Oakland, California; Courtesy of Creative Growth
Scott’s work serves as a reckoning, reimagining the housing projects he grew up in, the hospital he was treated in as a child, or entire neighborhoods. He sees architecture as a tool that can write the story of the future, but also help rewrite his own story, as if he can be reincarnated into it. In his vision, Praise Frisco also brings people back to life, undoing the pain and trauma of loss and struggle with spaces that are welcoming beacons of prosperity and health.
Scott’s utopian proposals merge ideas of faith, referencing gospel exuberance and catering to a moral high ground, as well as fantasy, tapping into the dreams-come-true ethos of Disney. He aims to spread joy and peace, both depicting and manifesting the “wholesome encounters” that are integral to his paintings. This is the poetic and optimistic potential of Scott’s idea of home: a world that is peaceful, vibrant, and connected.
JOSEPH BECKER William, can you tell me what Praise Frisco is?
WILLIAM SCOTT Praise Frisco is a new city of San Francisco, with balcony high-rises for the good people everywhere. It is Peace Headquarters. San Francisco General Hospital needs to be demolished in 2029 to be rebuilt as brick buildings with the new style of a new look of a new architecture. Praise Frisco is a Gospel City to be rebuilt of a new zoning of a new city with balconies. High-rises in San Francisco with a Disney Gospel Resort. On Van Ness Avenue and on Market Street and including Bayview– Hunters Point. Third Street as Disneywood Oakdale, and Palou Avenue will be demolished. The projects on Oakdale and Palou Avenue in 2029, in five years, will be rebuilt as Pebble Rock Village. A new look by Hunters Point Shipyard, Cow Palace, and Geneva Avenue in Visitacion Valley. Martin Luther King Towers will be rebuilt in the Visitacion Valley area with twin towers.
BECKER It’s a new vision for San Francisco’s future?
SCOTT That is a new vision. Because in San Francisco there is too much violence. It’s a bad place. We need a Gospel City with high-rise balconies and a Disney Resort. Because Disney is a place to live, like a Gospel Disney Resort. To make people feel good, to bring dozens of people back to life.
BECKER You grew up in Hunters Point, which is where you’re designing the Disney Resort. Are you thinking about your own rebirth?
SCOTT Yeah, rebirth. Because there’s a lot of killings in San Francisco, and homeless people. We need to bring wholesome encounters to the Earth. We need wholesome encounters of the Skyline Friendly Organization, without aliens, without evils. We need to replace the evils and aliens and horrors. Replace scary stuff. That’s very important, I’m serious. It’s very important.
BECKER And to do that means removing what’s existing and starting with something new?
SCOTT Yeah, removing. Starting the wholesome encounters. Replacing the original San Francisco skyscrapers, replacing the old ones from the sixties and seventies, replacing the old original skyscrapers. New ones would have balconies.
BECKER I see that you’re looking at Google Maps aerial views of the neighborhoods and buildings that you want to transform.
SCOTT Yes, I do. Yeah. ’Cause that’s where you need to read, ’cause this one needs to be demolished, and that one that’s demolished, it’s demolished, yeah, and this, that’s demolished right here.
Excerpt from Making Home: Belonging, Memory, and Utopia in the 21st Century, (Cooper Hewitt | The MIT Press, 2025) published in companion with Making Home—Smithsonian Design Triennial (New York, Nov. 2024-Aug. 2025)
