SAN FRANCISCO | Projects: Under Construction, Approved, and Proposed

[Dan in Chicago]

Why would I make a trip to SF? I'm just passing on information I received. I knew it was topped out.

[fflint]

^That information is not obviously correct.

[Dan in Chicago]

That's true. Anybody can come on here and post any height they want. If anyone here cares about the exact height, you can check the blueprints yourself, but be sure to check the ground level on the elevations because apparently it was not zero - a common source of height errors. You can also contact the Planning Department of the City and County of San Francisco, which gave Emporis the corrected data along with the explanation about the baseline error.

[fflint]

Two San Francisco forumers saw the architects' blueprints and 641' was the height listed for the structure itself. We've been over this a million times.

[Dan in Chicago]

I just received a pdf of the blueprints. I will have someone post them here if necessary. The top of the building is 641'-10", similar to what your two forumers reported, but the 0'-0" line is in the lowest basement, about 15' below Harrison Street and at least 35' below grade on the southeast side. Here is a quote from the gentleman at SF City/County Planning:

"You can see from the plan that the grade of First Street (dashed line rising from left to right), where the centerline of the south tower meets the ground (at an elevation somewhere between 52'6" and 42'), and the top of the building at elevation 641'10". If you subtract those numbers, you get a building height of approximately 593' or so. They consider elevation 0'0" as the bottom of the project, the floor of a basement level which is several floors below street grade of the south tower and also below the street grade of the north tower as well (which sits further down the hill from the south tower).

I would assume that you're interested in the height of buildings as measured from street grade, which is how we at the SF Planning Dept measure height. I'm not sure why the architects measured the height from the floor of their lowest basement, which not only has no relation to how we measure height, but also is not related to street grade in any way. I don't see why that's particularly useful. So now we all know where the oft mis-quoted 641' height comes from!"

605' might not be exactly correct, it depends where the proper baseline for the south tower is. We will have to scale the drawings to find out, but I don't see how it can be 641'.

[Reminiscence]

Did we not already settle this issue like three times already, or am I missing something here? No disrespect to anyone, but if the official height it 641', thats what it is. I dont see the point of bringing this up once again.

[BTinSF]

^^^Since you are in Chicago, this rendering may clarify what the Planning guy told you.


Source: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/object...JDLGJ1.DTL&o=1

The foreground left corner is 1st & Harrison

But I would question one conclusion you are making. If the "zero" grade line is about 15' below the street grade of the existing portion of the building (1st & Harrison or even halfway down the block--and the hill--on Harrison), to my eye that would put it pretty darned close to the level of the street grade at the corner of Harrison & Fremont where the second (North) tower will be. And this is one building even though it contains 2 towers. So 641 feet from the sidewalk in front at the corner of Fremont & Harrison to the top of the tallest part of the structure could be awfully close if not flat on.

There just doesn't seem to be any "right" way to measure this in spite of what you are saying and, in fact, from almost anywhere in San Francisco the structure conveys an impression of being significantly taller than it actually is because it sits near the top of one of the city's taller natural hills.

Just count yourself lucky you don't have the issue in flat Chicago.

[viewguysf]

Originally Posted by BTinSF

^^^Since you are in Chicago, this rendering may clarify what the Planning guy told you.


Source: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/object...JDLGJ1.DTL&o=1

The foreground left corner is 1st & Harrison

But I would question one conclusion you are making. If the "zero" grade line is about 15' below the street grade of the existing portion of the building (1st & Harrison or even halfway down the block--and the hill--on Harrison), to my eye that would put it pretty darned close to the level of the street grade at the corner of Harrison & Fremont where the second (North) tower will be. And this is one building even though it contains 2 towers. So 641 feet from the sidewalk in front at the corner of Fremont & Harrison to the top of the tallest part of the structure could be awfully close if not flat on.

There just doesn't seem to be any "right" way to measure this in spite of what you are saying and, in fact, from almost anywhere in San Francisco the structure conveys an impression of being significantly taller than it actually is because it sits near the top of one of the city's taller natural hills.

Just count yourself lucky you don't have the issue in flat Chicago.

Actually, it sits near the top of one of San Francisco's shorter hills--Nob Hill, Russian Hill, Twin Peaks, Mt. Sutro, Mt. Davidson and a number of others are much more significant. In several cases, they are over 800' higher than the 100' Rincon Hill.

I can't see how this could be viewed as one building because it clearly isn't--it's one complex with two towers and a connecting base building. If you reference many twin or partnered towers throughout the world, you'll find them listed as separate buildings, just like they are on this website.

Why can't someone just determine the south tower's elevation above sea level and subtract the elevation at its front entrance? It seems to me as if that would be a fair measurement. They've definitely cheated on numbering the floors because the first floor should be the lobby level, not a below grade level which is not accessible directly from the outside.

At any rate, the tower does appear to be huge, especially when viewed from a distance in any direction.

[northbay]

so, according to dan, ALL of us bay area forumers missed the true height after months (years?) of wrangling, and HE can tell us what it is from chicago?!?


yea, its 641'.

[viewguysf]

Originally Posted by northbay420

so, according to dan, ALL of us bay area forumers missed the true height after months (years?) of wrangling, and HE can tell us what it is from chicago?!?


yea, its 641'.

Well, we've never really stopped wrangling about this building! It's a trip, huh?

Happy Thanksgiving everyone, no matter where you are!

[SFView]

See posts #596 and #600 of the One Rincon Hill construction thread:
http://forum.skyscraperpage.com/show...107919&page=30
One Rincon does not look any taller than 345 California Street in elevation.

Could it be that all these different height claims are all correct, but it just depends where one measures the height from - Level 1, Level 6, Roof, or top of structure? Without any further speculation, could someone please post the PDF's of the drawings here and in the One Rincon Hill construction tread?

[Dan in Chicago]

Originally Posted by northbay420

so, according to dan, ALL of us bay area forumers missed the true height after months (years?) of wrangling, and HE can tell us what it is from chicago?!?


yea, its 641'.

Well yes. If you're living inside the building but I'm sitting in Cambodia with the blueprints, who's going to have better information on the height? Unless someone can say that Harrison Avenue slopes exactly 15' down along the north tower (and it sure doesn't look like it), then it is clear that someone misread the blueprints. Do you measure buildings from the basement or ground level?

I'll post the blueprints here as soon as I have time. I'm in the middle of finals now, so it'll be a few days.

[HarryBarbierSRPD]

RabbleRabbleRabbleRabble!!!!

[BTinSF]

Originally Posted by viewguysf

I can't see how this could be viewed as one building because it clearly isn't--it's one complex with two towers and a connecting base building.

Clear to you. Any separation among the building's parts is a seismic issue. My condo, with its 3 towers, does the same thing. The building is constructed so that the various parts (each tower and the connecting structures) can move independently in a quake--it was learned in the San Fernando quake decades ago that buildings are destroyed by having radically different parts inflexibly tied together. But it's still one building, your opinion notwithstanding.

[BTinSF]

Originally Posted by SFView

See posts #596 and #600 of the One Rincon Hill construction thread:
http://forum.skyscraperpage.com/show...107919&page=30
One Rincon does not look any taller than 345 California Street in elevation.

Could it be that all these different height claims are all correct, but it just depends where one measures the height from - Level 1, Level 6, Roof, or top of structure?

Yes. But as I said, it's even more complicated because even the sidewalk right in front of Tower 1's lobby isn't flat--it slopes. If you want to measure from the sidewalk, do you measure from the uphill end or the downhill end?

Standing on Harrison St. as most observers who don't live in the building are likely to do, this building will tower well in excess of 600' above you. That's all I care about. But the rest of this is pretty funny--all the arguing as if it really made much difference.

[SFView]

Originally Posted by BTinSF

Yes. But as I said, it's even more complicated because even the sidewalk right in front of Tower 1's lobby isn't flat--it slopes. If you want to measure from the sidewalk, do you measure from the uphill end or the downhill end?...

Neither. Building height measurements are usually measured from floor level elevations. If one is measuring from the entry level six, it would be the interior floor level elevation at the main entry.

[viewguysf]

Originally Posted by SFView

Neither. Building height measurements are usually measured from floor level elevations. If one is measuring from the entry level six, it would be the interior floor level elevation at the main entry.

That is correct and I fail to see why it has been so widely ignored in this thread, short of all of us wanting the tower to be as tall as possible. Whether we like if or not, what you said above is the generally accepted standard worldwide.

[viewguysf]

Originally Posted by BTinSF

Clear to you. Any separation among the building's parts is a seismic issue. My condo, with its 3 towers, does the same thing. The building is constructed so that the various parts (each tower and the connecting structures) can move independently in a quake--it was learned in the San Fernando quake decades ago that buildings are destroyed by having radically different parts inflexibly tied together. But it's still one building, your opinion notwithstanding.

Opera Plaza notwithstanding, this seems to defy logic and common sense to me. How can the two skyscraper towers of One Rincon Hill not be viewed as separate buildings? Was the World Trade Center viewed as one building? No, it was viewed as six buildings in the original complex. Both ORH and The Infinity are listed as separate buildings on this website and elsewhere and there are many other examples. Even the "City Residences" of the Millennium is being constructed separately from the tower. I totally understand and was aware of your seismic example, but that is a separate issue.

[BTinSF]

Newest towers will give S.F. skyline a touch of glass
John King, Chronicle Urban Design Writer
Monday, November 26, 2007

Architecture has its trends like any other field of design - and in San Francisco, today's changing skyline shows that the glass box is back.

Six sleek towers are under construction, and several more have been approved or proposed. Some are reflective; others offer a voyeuristic peek inside. The colors range from icy blue to smoky green.



The city planners who approved these translucent high-rises already are having second thoughts, emphasizing that glass towers need to remain the exception, not the rule. But architects say glass is in sync with today's world, a symbol of contemporary life as well as technological innovation.

"In this day and age, society wants to be more transparent," said Ali Moghaddasi of HOK architects, the designer of a recently approved 27-story glass tower near First and Mission streets down the block from 555 Mission St., a glass high-rise that opens next year. "Look at the Internet, where information is free and available to everyone."

Instead of the masonry-clad structures that define other eras, San Francisco's new crop includes the soon-to-open InterContinental Hotel at Fifth and Howard streets. A cross between a glacier and an old-fashioned apartment radiator, the curvy inn's hue is so vivid that it's being marketed as "32 stories of cool blue luxury in the heart of San Francisco."

"I wanted a look that would be fluid, close to water," said designer Alberto Bertoli of Patri Merker Architects. "San Francisco's urban form is kind of sad-looking, solids and concrete or stone."

Five blocks to the east, the milky blue Millennium Tower at 301 Mission St. is not so much a glowing object as a chameleon - a 60-story shaft where the glass serves as a canvas behind thin steel fins that form a diagonal streak sliding up and around the tower's four sides. Viewed straight on, the fins disappear. At an angle, they're as vivid as the mark of Zorro.

"The idea was to create a fragmented crystal with striations that keep shifting," said Glenn Rescalvo of Handel Architects, the designer. "It's more about the shape of the building than the color of the glass."

The difference in these two "blue" buildings shows the design possibilities of glass, which can be manufactured in hundreds of fine-tuned variations. At the InterContinental, the glass lets in 71 percent of daylight and has a "reflectance factor" of only 7 percent, meaning that very little light bounces off. By contrast, 301 Mission's glass repels more of the light that hits it, increasing the mirrored effect.

Aesthetics aren't the only factor that architects take into account when selecting glass.

San Francisco's City Planning Department wants glass towers to be as transparent as possible, fearing that shiny or mirrored buildings might stick out like glitzy thumbs. But ultraclear panels allow unfiltered sun into a building, driving up energy costs because of heat gain and the need for air conditioning. That runs against state mandates on the use of energy as well as the city's desire for buildings that meet high environmental standards.

Glass can be tinted to reduce the heat gain or sprayed with a metallic coating, but then the result can be too dark or too slick.

So architects do a juggling act, helped by manufacturers offering new "blends" that balance transparency and performance.

"Glass is changing rapidly because the demands on the glass companies are changing rapidly," said Jeffrey Heller of Heller Manus Architects, whose firm is on the design teams of several towers. "Sustainability is coming on like a rocket ship."

San Francisco planners face a different challenge: making sure the new skyline doesn't look like it parachuted in from Dallas.

That wasn't a concern when today's towers were on the drawing board. Then, they were a welcome contrast. Millennium Tower sits amid stone-clad towers from the 1980s. As for the InterContinental, "We were really tired of beige precast concrete panels with green-glass windows," said Craig Nikitas, a senior planner with the city. "To get something with its own integrated color seemed like a nice change."

To be sure, glass-clad buildings are nothing new in San Francisco. The Hallidie Building, built at 130 Sutter St. in 1917, wears one of the world's first glass "curtain walls," in which pre-assembled panels are hung into place on a building's structural form.

But as glass-and-steel high-rises recast the skyline after World War II, overtly modern buildings sparked a backlash. The shift culminated in 1985's Downtown Plan, which decreed that new buildings should "contribute to the visual unity of the city." Another rule: "Highly reflective materials, particularly mirrored or highly reflective glass, should not be used."

The planning director at the time: Dean Macris. The planning director today: Macris, who returned to the post in 2004.

While Macris now champions contemporary design, he and Nikitas say the 1985 edict against glossy glass still applies. But the sheer number of sheer towers is causing alarm, as is the fact that the first batch hasn't lived up to planner expectations: "I can't say we've said, 'Aha, there's the perfect solution,' " Macris admitted.

Concern reached such a point this summer that planners almost proposed changing the city's zoning codes to define exactly what percentages of reflectivity and transparency would be allowed. Instead, the department will work to strike a balance case by case, allowing fresh styles but seeking to prevent skyline-marring mistakes.

"Our job is to take the collective view," Macris said. "This city is so overwhelmingly masonry, the balance won't be tipped by the latest crop. But we could be at a point south of Market Street where we encourage the next set of guys to come in with something other than all-glass facades."

In the case of Moghaddasi's Mission Street tower, which will have a tapering shape the architect likens to "a diaphanous candlestick," Macris and Nikitas worried that the wall samples had too green a tint. So they visited a manufacturing yard in Alameda to see a sample wall panel measuring 10 by 13 feet.

"This is an art, not a science," said Macris, who decided the glass passed muster. "We're trying to do our best between all these competing objectives."

On SFGate.com: John King gives a tour of San Francisco's glassy new skyline (Video): http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/object...0SKN52.DTL&o=0



























































E-mail John King at jking@sfchronicle.com.

http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cg.../MN00SKN52.DTL

Note the bit about the green tint of the glass on 535 Mission--I'm jazzed with anticipation of that.

[Downtown Dave]

Deleted.