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WHY Architecture has been named as a defendant in a new lawsuit by the Asian Art Museum Foundation of San Francisco after allegedly failing to meet the institution’s design goals for a $38 million expansion project that was completed in March of 2020. The suit was first entered in the... View full entry
Mork-Ulnes Architects has unveiled their completed residential project in Bernal Heights, San Francisco. Named ‘The Silver Lining House,’ the home was commissioned by architectural photographer Bruce Damonte and interior designer Alison Damonte, who sought a “container for the couple’s art... View full entry
The Terner Center for Housing Innovation at UC Berkeley has released a statewide assessment of the development of housing five years after the implementation of California's Senate Bill (SB) 35 began in 2018. The bill eased the barriers to housing production for builders, in some cases removing... View full entry
These conversions seem like a win-win: turning a plethora of barely used office space into desperately needed urban housing.
But converting offices into apartments is easier said than done. And while it's easy to imagine the process behind conversions, like adding in walls and plumbing, it gets complicated.
— NPR
Various cities across the United States have been turning to office-to-residential conversions as a way to address declining city cores that have yet to reach pre-pandemic levels. As noted by NPR, San Francisco is making way for these conversions by adjusting current building codes and getting rid... View full entry
In addition to overall wetter conditions, the study predicts increasingly intense bursts of heavy rain during storms — up to two-thirds wetter by the end of the century — the type of brief torrents that can easily overwhelm sewer systems, swamp cars and cause significant property damage and even loss of life, said Michael Mak, a Pathways water resources engineer. — KQED
Mayor London Breed announced a $369 million Water Infrastructure Finance and Innovation Act loan a month before the report was made public courtesy of KQED’s public records request. The report indicates a 37% increase in stormwater by the end of the century. Meanwhile, the city’s... View full entry
MVRDV has completed a mixed-use tower in San Francisco inspired by geology. Named ‘The Canyon,’ the 23-story scheme is part of a wider master plan along the city’s waterfront to create a sustainable community named Mission Rock. Image credit: Jason O'Rear The Canyon is one of four buildings... View full entry
Despite initial progress in the first phase of the so-called fix earlier this year, the sinking and leaning Millennium Tower in San Francisco is now tilting more to the west than ever, according to monitoring data reviewed by NBC Bay Area’s Investigative Unit.
The tower is currently leaning more than 29 inches at the northwest corner of Fremont and Mission streets, much of the added tilt occurring during the digging needed to prepare to support the tower along two sides.
— NBC Bay Area
The data came from a rooftop monitoring system, which the fix’s chief engineer Ron Hamburger said was less reliable than the one contained in its foundation before stating the half-inch tilt recorded was "negligible." A geotechnical engineer working on the $100 million project expressed his... View full entry
A unique piece of architectural history is headed to America following the purchase of a remaining Nakagin Capsule Tower pod by the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art (SFMOMA). The LA Times’ Carolina A. Miranda was first to report on the museum’s acquisition last week, which she said will join... View full entry
Famous historic sites, low-income apartments and Twitter's headquarters all appear on a previously unpublished draft list of 3,407 concrete buildings in San Francisco that may be at high risk of collapse in a major earthquake, according to a copy of a city government document obtained by NBC News through a public records request. — NBC News
The city says the list is still a “preliminary draft inventory” of at-risk concrete structures, some of which were built after 2000, according to NBC. Who will actually pay for the mass retrofits still hasn’t been hammered out yet, leaving many to speculate as to its near-term feasibility... View full entry
Another international head of state will follow last year’s A’22 keynote speaker Barack Obama in headlining the upcoming AIA Conference on Architecture in San Francisco after the Institute announced that former Prime Minister of New Zealand Jacinda Ardern will be in attendance at the event... View full entry
A proposed new high-rise development in San Francisco’s Outer Sunset district is standing out over its disputed manipulation of statewide density laws. The LA Times is reporting on CH Planning‘s unlikely new proposal, which could add a Solomon Cordwell Buenz-designed 50-story... View full entry
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... View full entry
That simple recipe for pandemic lemonade—offices people no longer use, combining with central urban locations where people want to live—is blissfully ignorant of a wide range of architectural and economic factors that make the vast majority of office buildings simply unsuitable as housing. — Fast Company
Labeled by Fast Company as “Goldilocks” zones, the sweet spot for office buildings with the potential to become residential are ones that are mid-rise, built pre-WWII, with at least two sides facing open areas or streets near, but not within, a city’s financial core. According to San... View full entry
The drama over the project provides a window into just how hard it is for the city to scale up its housing and shelter system, even as a recent report from the Department of Homelessness and Supportive Housing (HSH) estimated it would take more than 6,000 extra temporary and permanent beds to solve the crisis on the streets. It also puts into sharp relief how easily neighborhood opposition can derail a project, even when the funding and space is available — and the need is clear. — San Francisco Chronicle
The Mission district parking lot is scheduled to become an affordable housing development with construction beginning in 2025 and the tiny homes program was expected to fill the gap. “It's always the same hand wringing,” housing advocate Sam Moss told the Chronicle. “It’s... View full entry
Mayors across a variety of American towns and cities have used the U.S. Conference of Mayors to voice concerns about their ability to address the dual crises of housing affordability and homelessness. As reported by Politico, specific struggles shared by mayors include attracting investors... View full entry
