Heatherwick Studio together with Earthprise and a team of experienced local waterfront and biodiversity specialists have unveiled The Cove, a new vision for San Francisco's Piers 30-32. The part of the bay has been closed for over 36 years due to a devastating fire that decimated the original piers.
The ecological park and community hub takes as a two-building workplace campus with a central 5-acre ecological public park. The building area totals about 550,000 gross square feet. The modular design of the structures, inspired by the region's original pier sheds, can accommodate workspace for a single tenant or multiple tenants.
According to the design team the entire Cove is smaller than the original pier footprint, has less bay fill, and is highly sustainable, and plans for net-zero carbon and International Living Future Institute certifications.
"Like the coronavirus pandemic and the recent northern California fires, and Loma Prieta before it, climate change, sea level rise, and earthquakes will not wait for man. The clock is ticking," said Art Thompson, Executive Director at Earthprise in a statement. "The protection of the health, safety and well-being of our people and our communities is paramount, and in jeopardy. Our waterfront infrastructure is our first line of defense in the face of forces bigger than ourselves. Timely, modern, ecologically-based resiliency improvements, which also respect the Embarcadero Historic District, like The Cove, are key to future-proof our City by the Bay, to safeguard our people, our assets, and our economy against natural disasters."
14 Comments
Maude Lebowski: My art has been commended as being strongly vaginal which bothers some men. The word itself makes some men uncomfortable. Vagina.
So they are working with The Wire Collective for rendering, not Forbes Massie this time.
The protection of the health, safety and well-being of our people and our communities is paramount, and in jeopardy. Our waterfront infrastructure is our first line of defense in the face of forces bigger than ourselves. Timely, modern, ecologically-based resiliency improvements, which also respect the Embarcadero Historic District, like The Cove, are key to future-proof our City by the Bay, to safeguard our people, our assets, and our economy against natural disasters.
FFS it's a small office park on the water. it has no impact on the world good or bad, it's just a cute little design. i hate these bombastic ridiculous pr pieces.
Right!? It's nice enough but I can't roll my eyes hard enough at that over-the-top marketing copy.
Way over-designed -- we took a bad turn in the mid 2000s towards buildings as ornament. Blame Rem
Well you've got a sculptor branded as the Da Vinci of our times and running an architectural practice loved by developers around the world.
Probably why industrial designers and comic book artists are becoming architects and architects are going into other professions like technology. The criteria for developers is outside-in (PR and buildings as ornaments) and not inside-out. Meanwhile the AIA is stuck pretending like everything is hunky doory. Do your indentured servitude!
The
another pier 39.
Kinda looks like a row of 80's townhouses that would typically back up to a golf course.
You Have to Pay for the Public Life
Not sure why this Heatherwick proposal is being featured here (or in the Architect's Newspaper), as its not the winning project in the RFP process - the project by Strada/Trammel Crow/Grimshaw is, as reported here: https://www.bizjournals.com/sa... and here: https://www.sfchronicle.com/ba...
...nor was Heatherwick's project even among the 3 "qualified" finalists, as reported here: http://socketsite.com/archives... and here: https://sfist.com/2020/09/08/l...
If 'news' coverage like this doesn't acknowledge simple truths like this, it comes dangerously close to being 'fake news'. Guess its just Heatherwick's 'star power' - whether its a real project or not - that gets his design work published...
It's like Utzon just landed with the Kingo style pasture in a new harbor.
Even these people will be hard pressed to compete for the CaliforniaCreativeCenter project.
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