Archinect - News

Concerns after high winds cause windows to shatter on San Francisco towers

2023-03-29T12:47:00-04:00

A city official in San Francisco is calling for extensive reports into the integrity of facades in the city’s downtown after a recent storm caused windows from multiple high-rises to be damaged.

According to the San Francisco Department of Buildings and Inspections, four buildings in downtown San Francisco suffered glass failure during a high-wind storm last week. The Millennium Tower suffered one broken window, as did 1400 Mission and 50 California, while the Salesforce East building suffered one broken window on every floor from floors 11 through 30.

As a result of the glazing failures, shards of glass were scattered across Mission Street, posing a hazard to pedestrians below. City officials have since directed building managers to secure impacted windows and commission professionals to ensure all buildings are safe, stable, and secure.

In the meantime, San Francisco supervisor Aaron Peskin told ABC7 ...

San Francisco's Salesforce Tower deploys drones to inspect its 1,070-foot-tall facade

2019-03-13T13:56:00-04:00

Salesforce Tower, San Francisco’s tallest building, can be seen for miles around the Bay Area. But to inspect the building’s exterior for potential damage, owner Boston Properties needed to get close. So it enlisted a drone. At 1,070 feet, the tower is a major example of the growing use of drones for building and construction inspections.

The SF Chronicle writes about the increasing deployment of flying high-tech equipment to cut down on the inspection time (and cost) on very large buildings, such as Salesforce Tower: "The small aircraft, which now have high definition cameras, are cheaper, faster and safer than traditional human inspections, said Zeev Braude, CEO of SiteAware, which created the drone software used in the Salesforce Tower inspection."

Despite all the technological advancements, the age of human building facade inspections isn't entirely over yet and, instead, takes to new heights: Meet New York City's fearless rope-access building inspectors.

John King reviews the newly opened Salesforce Tower, now San Francisco's tallest building

2018-01-19T14:26:00-05:00

All of which makes for a nuanced tower, conscientious and self-assured even as it reorients the skyline and redefines San Francisco’s visual image. But there’s also an air of detachment, as if the creators were so busy being tasteful they forgot that big buildings can be fun. In the works for a decade, and with plenty of work left to do, the 1.42 million-square-foot tower at First and Mission streets opened quietly Monday.

John King, the San Francisco Chronicle’s urban design critic, reviews Pelli Clarke Pelli's brand new Salesforce Tower which recently welcomed its first occupants. "And while it won’t ever gain visual swagger," King writes, "you might come to like it more than you expect."

At 1,070 feet, it's a slick steel and glass behemoth and dethroned the 853-foot Transamerica Pyramid from its top spot as San Francisco's tallest building — a title it managed to hold since 1972.

Salesforce Tower is set to become San Francisco's tallest, and most expensive, building

2017-04-12T12:17:00-04:00

Come July, the Pelli Clarke Pelli-designed Salesforce Tower in San Francisco is set to break two records: tallest building in the city and the most expensive. At 1,070-feet tall, the building cost its developer, Boston Properties, a whopping $1.1 billion. Actually, the Salesforce Tower isn’t just the tallest building in San Francisco—it’s the tallest building west of Chicago (capable of being occupied).

Salesforce, a cloud computing company, bought the naming rights for the building and will pay the developer around $560 million over 15 and a half years to lease 30 floors. Other tenants include Bain and Company, Accenture, and CBRE, a real estate group.