| |
Posted Jan 15, 2008, 8:45 PM
|
 |
Only Mostly Dead
|
|
Join Date: Apr 2007
Location: Marin
Posts: 5,234
|
|
Today's Chronicle has a John King article on the new PUC building and sustainability in general. He mentions that the Board of Supervisors approved it in December, and the PUC approved the construction contract last week. Demolition should begin this spring and the target opening is 2010. I was hoping for new renderings, but this looks like the same one that has already been posted here.
Quote:
I just want to say one word to you: sustainability
John King
Tuesday, January 15, 2008
During six years writing about architecture for The Chronicle, I've seen trends come and go. Glass is the new stucco. Towers are taller and some of them twist. Celebrity architects spend as much time on self-promotion as serious design.
But here's the trend that sticks, the one lasting change: Visual drama is no longer enough. Environmental sustainability counts for more than curb appeal.
That's why San Francisco's planned Public Utilities Commission building is so much a sign of the times. It's conceived to be a showcase of "green" design, a departure from the bureaucratic norm. But by the time it opens in 2010, I'll wager that even more adventurous buildings are close behind - because the world has changed, and architecture has to change with it.
The 12-story structure will rise a block from City Hall at 525 Golden Gate Ave., and instead of a stylish dome it will be topped by solar panels and wind turbines. The south-facing walls will include a formal grid of white Sierra granite to fit the Beaux Arts look of the Civic Center, but there also will be horizontal strips of finlike panels placed to deflect harsh sunlight while bouncing light toward the building's innards.
Fittingly for the agency that operates San Francisco's water system, the new building is also designed to emphasize water conservation. There will be sensors to turn restroom faucets on and off as needed, for instance, and water will be recycled within the building for use in toilets and the cooling system.
The most visual proof that this isn't business as usual? While the glassy wall facing Golden Gate Avenue will pull back as the floors ascend, a 20-foot-wide stairwell will rise straight up along the sidewalk. Attached to the outside of the stairs, behind a wall of clear glass, you'll see a 190-foot-high stack of swirling wind turbines. These turbines are part of a system that will generate 40 percent of the building's annual power needs. They'll also be a kinetic sculpture that never stops. And yes, it's a bird-friendly design: Think corkscrews that twist, rather than fan blades that chop.
All these touches are costly, adding an estimated $16 million to the $178 million budget. The payoff comes from consolidating 1,000 employees now scattered in various rented spaces. And, less quantifiably, stirring the pot.
"What we've been given by the PUC is a big open window," says David Hobstetter of KMD Architects, the building's designer. "The city's starting point is, 'We want to show the world.' They're willing to take risks."
The Board of Supervisors gave an 11-0 blessing in December, and the Public Utilities Commission signed off on the construction contract last week. Demolition of what's now on the site, a grim bureaucratic box closed since the 1989 earthquake, should begin this spring. The target opening date is 2010.
To me, what's exciting isn't the gee-whiz factor of those turbines, or tidbits such as how marble from the existing building's lobby might be recycled for use as restroom-stall partitions. The hook is that the PUC building, though aggressive, isn't unique. It's part of a much larger trend.
San Francisco alone has enough examples to make the case. On the public front, the supervisors are about to review an ordinance from Mayor Gavin Newsom requiring that by 2012 all new commercial buildings in San Francisco larger than 25,000 square feet must qualify for a Gold rating under the LEED (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design) standards established by the U.S. Green Building Council. Once this dictate would have caused a fuss; now, it's endorsed by groups such as the Building Owners and Managers Association.
In the private world, developers and large landowners are embracing sustainability as a bid to win public support.
Down in the city's southwest corner, for example, the homely Parkmerced complex was purchased in 2005 by a developer who eventually wants to double the 3,221 housing units now scattered through the 113-acre site. So what is being proposed? Try this marketing phrase: an "international model of urban sustainability" - heated by geothermal energy, with a rainwater runoff system that would flow into nearby Lake Merced, better mass transit and all the rest.
"It's a whole new world," Hobstetter says of the changes since 2001, when he started work on what now will be the PUC building. "Global warming and climate change are twin engines coming down the track. You're going to see an evolution in architecture to buildings like this, because it's what you have to do."
I don't pretend for a moment that all our problems are solved or that solar panels and waterless urinals will stop the Arctic ice pack from shrinking. You can also bet that when it comes to being green, many developers will do just enough to get by.
"With a building for private developers, everything still has to be cost-justified," Hobstetter says. "It's marketing and payback. Can they attract buyers or tenants with these (environmental) features, and do they justify the cost?"
And make no mistake, the starchitects of the world will still do their best to turn heads. We'll see odd shapes and contorted silhouettes and, yes, exhilarating bursts of three-dimensional art.
Still, an architect today who designs a high-profile building has to take the environment into account - consuming as few materials as possible, paying attention to a structure's carbon footprint. Not just because it's the right thing to do but also because other architects and clients are making the effort.
If you don't, you're behind the times. And that's the last place a cutting-edge architect wants to be.
|
|
|
|
Prev
Linear Mode
