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  #1561  
Old Posted May 29, 2008, 12:48 PM
livin' in the city livin' in the city is offline
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I am amazed at how some "non profits" like Mercy, and the other SRO built by Salvation Army in the Tenderloin at least try to push out of the Architectural bag as it were. The developers I think are afraid to offend potential buyers with too much Architecture. Narrow minded as it may be but in today's market place we may only get more of it.
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  #1562  
Old Posted May 29, 2008, 8:03 PM
BTinSF BTinSF is offline
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One Kearny is topped off (so says CurbedSF):


Source: http://sf.curbed.com/
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  #1563  
Old Posted May 29, 2008, 8:07 PM
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Originally Posted by livin' in the city View Post
I am amazed at how some "non profits" like Mercy, and the other SRO built by Salvation Army in the Tenderloin at least try to push out of the Architectural bag as it were. The developers I think are afraid to offend potential buyers with too much Architecture. Narrow minded as it may be but in today's market place we may only get more of it.
The debate rages on Socketsite:

Quote:
There’s always another perspective to consider. And with regard to who’s to blame for “bad” design in San Francisco, here it is (slightly edited for spelling and flow):

You can blame bureaucracy all you want, but in the end, it's simply not the problem with bad design in San Francisco. Over 90% of all the projects in SF are "designed" by hacks. In fact, a large majority of the new buildings are not even designed by architects, but by engineers and production architects who just churn out one project after another.
The architectural world refuses to criticize itself and you'll never see an architect show up at a Planning Commission meeting and say about someone else's project, "this proposal is trash and this architect is a hack." The architectural field loves to hand out awards to the better among them, but they never lambaste their own and search within. There are too many faux-"architects" and engineers who get too much work in this town.
Planners don't design the buildings -- they can't make a bad designer design a good building. If you were in their shoes, you'd get a sense of what it's like to have 1 decent proposal come across your desk for every 99 pieces of crap, all by the same 10 firms.


And a response that made us chuckle (and offers some perspective for all):

Architects not critical of one another's work? You've got to be kidding. Hyper critical is more like it. The problem is that we have habituated to it and most of us, including the hacks, have skin like rhinoceros hide. So telling us a project is trash just doesn't have the effect it would on a normal, sane person. Besides, if our work is any good someone is guaranteed to hate it. So we might just take it as a sign of greatness.
Source: http://www.socketsite.com/

One is left to wonder why "potential buyers" in Chicago are not offended by Architecture.
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  #1564  
Old Posted May 30, 2008, 1:39 AM
livin' in the city livin' in the city is offline
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Great Architecture has to be pursued and made a priority by someone with a mission like the Mayor's office, a strong Supervisor (something that may already be extinct), or a Planning Department head who's willing to put the pressure on developers and Architects to do better. Great Architecture isn't planned or put into city law; it just happens for a variety of converging reasons. That being said, no question in my mind more could be done by all of us to go to people in power who will have to listen eventually that we in San Francisco want GREAT ARCHITECTURE. That's my speech and I am sticking to it.
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  #1565  
Old Posted May 30, 2008, 4:18 AM
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Speaking of One Kearny, some shots I took of it today:



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  #1566  
Old Posted May 30, 2008, 5:47 AM
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Good stuff, Rem. You certainly made the most of your day in the city. I think you hit every major project we've been talking about.
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  #1567  
Old Posted May 30, 2008, 5:55 AM
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Good stuff, Rem. You certainly made the most of your day in the city. I think you hit every major project we've been talking about.
Thanks p.g. I thought so as well on my way back, until I realized that I had forgotten Argenta. I didnt get a glimpse of it this time around, but perhaps next week or so they've removed more of the scaffolding and I'll be able to swing 'round to snap it.
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  #1568  
Old Posted May 30, 2008, 7:48 AM
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Originally Posted by livin' in the city View Post
Great Architecture has to be pursued and made a priority by someone with a mission like the Mayor's office, a strong Supervisor (something that may already be extinct), or a Planning Department head who's willing to put the pressure on developers and Architects to do better.
I couldn't disagree more. Great architecture comes from allowing great architects and the developers who hire them to build as they want to build without running the plans through committee after committee of bureaucrats, NIMBYs, political appointees and politicians themselves.

In recent years, it's hard to imagine why a great architect would even want to design something in San Francisco, knowing that those bureaucrats and political hacks are going to ruin it.

The "Piano project" at First & Mission will be a test case in San Francisco. Here we have an architect who is acknowledged to be great and a developer who wants to build something great. Wiil the City let them is the question.
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  #1569  
Old Posted May 30, 2008, 4:33 PM
c1tyguy c1tyguy is offline
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Originally Posted by BTinSF View Post
The "Piano project" at First & Mission will be a test case in San Francisco. Here we have an architect who is acknowledged to be great and a developer who wants to build something great. Wiil the City let them is the question.
The answer to that question is no. I suppose the city would have supported the project, but at the lowering of height zoning limits to 800', the project woulnd't be the grand proposal that it once was.

An article posted on socketsite pretty much declares the project as dead. It is posted in the Piano tower thread.
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  #1570  
Old Posted May 30, 2008, 4:44 PM
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Socketsite, interesting as it is, often just reprints stuff from the SF Business Times. I posted the original.
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  #1571  
Old Posted May 30, 2008, 4:51 PM
nequidnimis nequidnimis is offline
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Originally Posted by BTinSF View Post
I couldn't disagree more. Great architecture comes from allowing great architects and the developers who hire them to build as they want to build without running the plans through committee after committee of bureaucrats, NIMBYs, political appointees and politicians themselves.
You forget the three rules of residential real estate: Location, location, and location. Nowhere does it say design. Therefore, to maximizie his profit, the smart developer needs to find the best location he can, and build the least expensive building he can. That the existing neighbors will face an eyesore after he's done is a problem for them, but not for him (economists call it a "negative externality"). That's why developers hire Heller Manus.

Last edited by nequidnimis; May 30, 2008 at 6:18 PM.
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  #1572  
Old Posted May 30, 2008, 4:53 PM
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Cesar Chavez condo project ready to begin

Once ground zero for the city's day laborers, the site of the old Kelly-Moore paint store in the Mission District is about to become a real construction site.

Developer Seven Hills has received site permits for its 60-unit condo project at 3400 Cesar Chavez St. and will begin excavation in the next week or so, according to firm principal Thomas Rocca. The project, which anti-development forces in the Mission District attempted to block at the 11th hour, will also house a 12,000-square-foot Walgreens, an after-school center for kids and two other retailers. The Board of Supervisors approved the building Aug. 31, 2007.

Christiani Johnson Architects is designing the project and Pacific Marketing Associates will handle sales and marketing.

Seven Hills is also doing mixed-use projects in Seattle and Portland and looking at a site on Van Ness Avenue.

"We're starting to see more sites up for sale, but land prices have not come down, nor have construction costs -- steel has gone through the roof," said Rocca.
Source: http://www.bizjournals.com/sanfranci...ml?t=printable

Here are renderings of the Cesar Chavez project:


Source: http://www.3400cesarchavez.net/en/drawings
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  #1573  
Old Posted May 30, 2008, 5:01 PM
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Originally Posted by nequidnimis View Post
You forget the three rules of real estate: Location, location, and location. Nowhere does it say design. Therefore, to maximizie his profit, the smart developer needs to find the best location he can, and build the least expensive building he can. That the existing neighbors will face an eyesore after he's done is a problem for them, but not for him.
That is absolutly not true. There are buildings all over Chicago and New York that prove it as do, I think, both ORH and The Infinity here in SF. Personally, I'm not thrilled with the locations of those buildings, especially ORH. Built at the top of a hill, it virtually eliminates walking as an option for the disabled and out-of-shape seniors--I've huffed/puffed up that hill to check the site too many times not to know it would make me drive almost anywhere if I lived there--plus it's fairly isolated and there's little in the area to walk to. But people are willing to pay premium prices to live there because it's a dramatic building with great views.

Here's more proof:

Quote:
Friday, May 30, 2008
S.F. tenants hunting for treasured LEED space
San Francisco Business Times - by J.K. Dineen

Tenants like killer views. They want to be near BART. They appreciate value. And, increasingly, they are looking for a green workspace.

While market reports regularly track view space and pricing, NAI BT Commercial's David Klein has now compiled a list of LEED-certified office space (and buildings) in San Francisco and Oakland. At a time when nearly every office building under construction has applied for Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design certification, the RealGreen Index demonstrates how few spaces and structures have achieved the designation thus far.

For entire buildings, you have PG&E's building at 245 Market St., Swinerton's headquarters at 260 Townsend St., Method cleaning products' home at 637 Commercial St., and a couple of others. In terms of built-out space, the biggest LEED spaces in San Francisco are Nixon Peabody's 80,000 square feet at One Embarcadero Center, Stantec Architecture's (formerly Chong Partners) 43,000-square-foot space at 405 Howard St., and HOK's 17,000-square-foot digs at One Bush St. Over in Oakland, the University of California Office of the President's HQ at 1111 Franklin St., a whopping 226,000 square feet, is LEED silver.

As of now, the fully LEED-blessed buildings have no vacancies, so tenants looking for such green homes have two choices. They can build out LEED spaces themselves or wait until some of buildings under construction, like Tishman Speyer's 555 Mission St., obtain certification. The RealGreen Index will help eliminate what Klein calls "greenwashing": the use of "green" references in marketing when the LEED certification has not been obtained.

"As of today if someone was determined to rent a LEED-certified office or retail space in San Francisco or Oakland, no such space is immediately available at any price," said Klein.
Source: http://www.bizjournals.com/sanfranci...ml?t=printable

So, once again, top architecture (in this case, green architecture), has a premium value, even if the location isn't ideal, and can recoup its cost in higher prices or rents.
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  #1574  
Old Posted May 30, 2008, 6:08 PM
nequidnimis nequidnimis is offline
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Originally Posted by BTinSF View Post
That is absolutly not true. There are buildings all over Chicago and New York that prove it as do, I think, both ORH and The Infinity here in SF. Personally, I'm not thrilled with the locations of those buildings, especially ORH. Built at the top of a hill, it virtually eliminates walking as an option for the disabled and out-of-shape seniors--I've huffed/puffed up that hill to check the site too many times not to know it would make me drive almost anywhere if I lived there--plus it's fairly isolated and there's little in the area to walk to. But people are willing to pay premium prices to live there because it's a dramatic building with great views.
The Location, location, location rule is well known. And ORH and the Infinity aren't exceptions to it: While the neighborhood is new, it is a short walking distance of downtown, a stone's throw from the beautifully landscaped Embarcadero, and it offers superior views. And being at the top of the hill has long been considered a plus in San Francisco real estate. As you may know, I am not really impressed by the architecture of ORH: Apart from the height and slenderness of the building, it is not really distinctive. The architecture of the Infinity is a joy, but as a matter of fact, it is the result of a redesign in response to initial community opposition. Here is a link to the Heller Manus design the developer initially favored:

http://forum.skyscraperpage.com/show...nfinity+heller

Last edited by nequidnimis; May 30, 2008 at 6:32 PM.
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  #1575  
Old Posted May 30, 2008, 6:41 PM
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Originally Posted by nequidnimis View Post
The Location, location, location rule is well known.
And it has frequent and a wide variety of exceptions. Dramatic architecture can be (and often is) one of them.

And we'll just have to agree to disagree about the location of ORH. Its location may be better in 20 years IF Folsom becomes the shopping street the planners envision. For now, it's in the middle of nowhere next to a freeway--with poor transit access--IMHO. It's a long walk to the Embaracadero and an even longer walk back up the hill. The reason San Franciscans like living on top of hills is the views but a 60-story building is going to have views in any case. And having lived for a few months up a steep hill, I wouldn't do it again.

PS: You needn't lecture me about how The Infinity came to its present design. I followed it from the beginning as you did. It may be the one example I can think of of a building that was definitely improved by the planning process. You could argue, though, that ORH and The Millenium are others. ORH was originally proposed as shorter and the Planning Dept., to its credit, urged that it be made higher, while The Millenium was to be two less interesting towers. But I would argue that the developer of ORH probably proposed the original shorter design thinking that would be easier to get approved in height-shy San Francisco and was as surprised as the rest of us when given a chance to make it taller.

Last edited by BTinSF; May 30, 2008 at 6:57 PM.
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  #1576  
Old Posted Jun 5, 2008, 3:18 AM
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From the Los Angeles Times
ARCHITECTURE REVIEW
Daniel Libeskind's Contemporary Jewish Museum

Daniel Libeskind's trademark off-kilter style is put to surprisingly effective use at the Contemporary Jewish Museum's new San Francisco home.
By Christopher Hawthorne
Times Architecture Critic

June 4, 2008



SAN FRANCISCO — ANYONE looking for signs that Daniel Libeskind's work might deepen profoundly over time, or shift in some surprising direction, has mostly been doing so in vain. After winning the master-plan competition at the ground zero site in New York in 2003, and subsequently landing commissions all over the world, he seemed content to stamp the same jagged, mournful aesthetic on each of his new buildings, whether it was a museum in Copenhagen or Denver or a condominium tower in Covington, Ky.

Even as the World Trade Center rebuilding effort collapsed around him, he smiled his Hillary smile and told everybody nothing was wrong, that he was moving forward, still thrilled to have the opportunity. He had developed a brand -- powerful if somewhat contradictory, turning tragedy and loss into soaring forms and feel-good PR -- and he wasn't about to mess with it by taking a stand for architectural principle.

The news from San Francisco, where his Contemporary Jewish Museum is set to open Sunday, won't change that story -- edgy theoretical architect gets famous, works to stay that way -- in any drastic manner. The CJM's new home is dedicated to using contemporary art to illuminate and explore Jewish culture and history. (Founded in 1984, the museum has no permanent collection.) That means Libeskind's trademark slashing forms and off-kilter geometries, while as recognizable as ever, have been employed to rich metaphorical effect, rather than simply decorating the living room of a seventh-floor three bedroom.

And yet the project also shows Libeskind working in a more restrained, even muted, mode than ever before. In part this is due to various delays and budget problems that have plagued the project, which got its start in 1998, well before Libeskind prevailed in Lower Manhattan. (The San Francisco commission was his first in North America.) In part it's due to the tight urban site occupied by the museum, which opens onto a new public plaza across the street from Yerba Buena Gardens and down the block from Mario Botta's San Francisco Museum of Modern Art.

Whatever the explanation, the generally happy architectural results are not just surprising but encouraging. At ground zero, Libeskind's designs were crippled and eventually rendered meaningless by compromise. Here they've been enriched by it.

The museum occupies a low-slung, brick-wrapped power company substation from 1907, which the architect, working with the local firms WRNS Studio and Architectural Resources Group, has carefully hollowed out and extended. The main gesture of the addition is classic Libeskind: a two-story torqued cube wrapped in dark-blue metal panels and turned on its side. A smaller, similarly hard-edged form protrudes from the roof.

But the calm, elegant presence of the 1907 building, designed by Willis Polk, keeps the sharp new forms in balance. And inside, the frenetic quality that marks some of Libeskind's work has been replaced by a complex but self-assured series of spaces.

At 63,000 square feet, with only 9,500 square feet of dedicated exhibition galleries, the museum is a far cry from the grand statement the architect made with his 2006 addition to the Denver Art Museum. That project, covering 146,000 square feet in all, infamously includes galleries with canted walls, a vertigo-inducing 120-foot-high lobby and an approach to circulation that is by turns exhilarating, bewildering and maddening.

In San Francisco, a museum planned at 110,000 square feet was ultimately trimmed back substantially. If the ratio of permanent exhibition space to ancillary space seems a bit low, it is not just because of the trend of turning museums into gift shops and educational facilities first and venues for showing art second; it also has something to do with an effort, on the part of the museum's leadership, to render the Libeskind aesthetic more practical and less self-indulgent.

Inside the top of the cube, for instance, the walls tilt and skew nearly as dramatically as they do in the Denver museum. But Connie Wolf, who took over as director of the CJM in 1999 after eight years at the Whitney Museum in New York, wisely decided with her curators to use the space not to hang paintings but for sound-based art and for music and spoken-word performances. On the ground floor, a bookshop will fill the cube's lower half.

That leaves only two galleries, one on each floor, permanently dedicated to showing painting and sculpture -- and all the other media that work to greatest effect on walls that meet the floor at 90 degrees. But each one is generously sized and thoughtfully proportioned. It's amazing what a little clarity from a client can produce.

"We wanted exhibition spaces that were open and flexible -- and didn't have slanted walls," Wolf told me on a tour of the building. "And that's what we got."

The lobby, where the Polk building, seen from the inside, reveals itself as little more than a shell, and where Libeskind slides a series of canted walls into a rectangular box of space, also benefits from the careful balance of explosive and well-behaved forms. When visitors enter from Jessie Square outside, they will see illuminated letters that spell out the word for "orchard" in Hebrew -- as well as suggesting other meanings on a letter by letter basis -- embedded in the wall opposite them. It is one of the building's many exercises in linguistic symbolism designed into the building, some of them more strained than others, and all of them quintessential Libeskind. Toward the back of the building, museum offices are tucked into the lower floors of an adjacent Four Seasons hotel tower.

The question is what all the elements add up to -- whether the result is an example of a maturing architect, one now better equipped to adapt to setbacks to his architectural vision, or simply a low-cost version of Libeskind Lite. Watching the progress of the project from afar, I was inclined to believe the latter. Walking through the finished building, though, I've fairly quickly changed my mind. I've also become convinced that Libeskind's work benefits hugely from a dense, even constricted urban context.

Perhaps the biggest surprise of the museum is that it manages to feel spatially ambitious and architecturally resolved at the same time. James E. Young, one of the contributors to a book the CJM published to mark the opening, calls it a "self-effacing" building. That term would probably have struck me as ridiculous before I toured the building. Now it seems surprisingly apt.

christopher.hawthorne @latimes.com
Source: http://www.latimes.com/entertainment...,4691186.story
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  #1577  
Old Posted Jun 5, 2008, 5:44 AM
c1tyguy c1tyguy is offline
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Originally Posted by BTinSF View Post
.
Its location may be better in 20 years IF Folsom becomes the shopping street the planners envision.
BT, I am always interested in your thoughts and opinions! They are always insightful.

Care to elaborate on this Folsom street shopping plan? I wasn't aware that planners were going this direction.
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  #1578  
Old Posted Jun 5, 2008, 7:09 AM
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The Rincon Hill Plan provides the blueprint for a dynamic new neighborhood to take shape just south of downtown. Together with plans for the Transbay area, it will create housing for as many as 20,000 new residents. The plan calls for retail shops and neighborhood services along Folsom Boulevard, and transforming Main, Beale, and Spear Streets into traffic-calmed, landscaped residential streets lined with townhouses and front doors. Funding is also included, from development impact fees, for the acquisition and development of open space in the district.

Source: http://www.sfgov.org/site/planning_index.asp?id=25076

The plan also calls for "Strong urban design guidelines that require transparent storefronts along Folsom Street . . . ."
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  #1579  
Old Posted Jun 5, 2008, 3:30 PM
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I saw pictures of the new (almost complete) public place in front of the jewish museum facing mission street! It looks like a a great addition to downtown! Does anyone know if there will be some kind of cafe there or something?
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  #1580  
Old Posted Jun 5, 2008, 5:42 PM
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THE CONTEMPORARY JEWISH MUSEUM OF SAN FRANCISCO (Curbed gallery, abridged)



















For these photos and more, see http://sf.curbed.com/archives/2008/0...eveal.php?o=13
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