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Studio Gang has beat out Allied Works and Michael Maltzan to win a commission to design an expanded art and design campus for the California College of the Arts (CCA) in San Francisco. The decision follows a two-year search and planning process.Currently, the CCA campus is split between two sites... View full entry
Hot on the heels of their lauded new National Museum of African American History, Adjaye Associates has been awarded a major new commission: the 760-acre masterplan for the second phase of the San Francisco Shipyard redevelopment.The Shipyard will house some 12,000 homes and apartments, a million... View full entry
Facing a legal and public-relations nightmare with its sinking and leaning Millennium Tower, the San Francisco highrise’s developer is redesigning the foundation of its newest luxury condo project up Mission Street — with the idea of going all the way down to bedrock. [...]
the 58-story Millennium Tower at 301 Mission St. [has] sunk 16 inches and is leaning 2 inches to the northwest. That condo high-rise sits on a concrete slab with piles driven 60 to 80 feet deep, well short of bedrock.
— SF Chronicle
In contrast, the 706 Mission St. tower was designed without any piles. Instead, it was to be held up by a four-story basement garage sitting on a bowl-shaped concrete slab, 12 feet thick at the center and 5 feet thick at the edges. The Millennium Tower is already sinking even though it was built... View full entry
Next month, media organizations in the Bay Area are planning to put aside their rivalries and competitive instincts for a day of coordinated coverage on the homeless crisis in the city. [...]
“We want the full force of the Fourth Estate to bear down on this problem” [...]
“You will not be able to log onto Facebook, turn on the radio, watch TV, read a newspaper, log onto Twitter without seeing a story about the causes and solutions to homelessness”
— nytimes.com
A fascinating effort in "solutions-oriented journalism", coordinating efforts across 30 media organizations to fully devote one day of coverage to the Bay Area's homelessness problem. While some organizations will report on the issue as they otherwise might, others will propose direct hypotheses... View full entry
Sea level forecasts by a coalition of scientists show that the Silicon Valley bases for Facebook, Google and Cisco are at risk of being cut off or even flooded, even under optimistic scenarios where rapid cuts in greenhouse gas emissions avoid the most severe sea level increases.
Without significant adaptation, Facebook’s new campus appears most at risk.
— the Guardian
San Francisco to mandate solar panels for new constructionsWhile the Frank Gehry-designed campus was elevated to prevent flooding, even a 1.6 ft rise – on the low end of predictions – will "inundate" the campus. Google is a little better off but will also be swamped if the Antarctic ice sheet... View full entry
Larry Gagosian’s new 4500 square foot space, designed by Kulapat Yantrasast, is set to open up on May 18, 2016, on 657 Howard Street, right across the street from SFMoMA. The inaugural exhibition there will focus on the relationships between modern and contemporary sculpture and drawing, featuring work from Picasso and Joe Bradley, among others. — Art Forum
Interested in other content from the intersections of architecture and the art world? Check out these recent posts:Albright-Knox Gallery announces short list of firms for $80m expansion: Snøhetta, BIG, OMA, wHY, Allied WorksAs the Met moves into the old Whitney, can it shrug off the iconic... View full entry
Last week the city council in Mountain View, California, took a significant step toward addressing Silicon Valley's housing affordability crisis. The city approved a new planning document for its North Bayshore district that envisions the creation of up to 10,250 units of high-density housing. Mountain View only has about 32,000 households total, so that would be a substantial 32 percent increase
[...]
— Vox
"The big question is whether this represents an isolated victory for housing advocates or whether it's the start of a trend toward denser development in Silicon Valley more broadly."For more on the housing woes of the world's tech capital, check out these links:Can Silicon Valley save the Bay... View full entry
The subject of a thousand think pieces and endless dinner table conversations, the considerable changes unleashed on the Bay Area by the tech industry over the past few decades are pretty undeniable. An influx of money – and its attendant culture – has remade San Francisco and the valley to... View full entry
Comedy troupe Cultivated Wit takes a humorous jab at megaprojects, outlandish crowdsourcing, and how much San Franciscans loathe Burning Man in a cheeky mock campaign that would support the construction of a 300-mile wall around the Bay Area to keep Burners out, forever. And all at a reasonable... View full entry
Luke Iseman, 31, leases a 17,000-square-foot warehouse in Oakland in which he has built 11 micro residences out of cargo containers, Bloomberg reports. He charges $1,000 per months for each of the makeshift homes, which aren’t legal, strictly speaking. [...]
“We have an opportunity here to create a new model for urban development that’s more sustainable, more affordable and more enjoyable.”
— businessinsider.com
More news on shipping containers and the Bay Area's residential market:The Emergence of Container UrbanismForget Big-Box Stores. How About A Big-Box House?Airbnb rentals cut deep into San Francisco housing stock, report saysNo room for affordable housing in SF? Build it in OaklandLooking to buy a... View full entry
Between 925 and 1,960 units citywide have been removed from the housing market by hosts renting out entire units on Airbnb for more than 58 days, the [San Francisco Budget & Legislative Analyst's] report estimates. [...]
The report draws a comparison between the number of evictions in neighborhoods with the most hosts, though notes there is no way to draw a direct connection. In the Mission, for example, there were 315 hosts last year and 323 evictions.
— m.sfexaminer.com
Oakland Mayor Libby Schaaf tossed out an idea that she admitted might sound a bit crazy: What if San Francisco housing developers could fulfill their affordable housing requirements by building some of that housing in Oakland? [...]
The idea is for San Francisco residents who qualify for below-market-rate housing to live in affordable units that would be built in Oakland. [...]
The foundation for the partnership is already being prepped in Oakland
— sfgate.com
"Google Barge...A floating data center? A wild party boat? A barge housing the last remaining dinosaur? Sadly, none of the above. Although it's still early days and things may change, we're exploring using the barge as an interactive space where people can learn about new technology."
Please forgive me, but if you decide to build what looks like quite a substantial structure out on the water, you might have some vague idea of what you're going to do with it.
— news.cnet.com
Previously: San Francisco's bay barge mystery: Floating data center or Google Glass store? View full entry
The mystery surrounding a large structure built on a barge docked in San Francisco bay is deepening. Is it a floating Google data center? A floating Google Glass store? Or something else altogether? — news.cnet.com
Meanwhile, (not-so-secret) construction boom at Google's fellow bay area competitors: Cupertino council clears huge Apple 'spaceship' campus for liftoff City Planners Approve Frank Gehry-Designed Facebook Campus in Menlo Park UPDATE: Google's barge explanation: Bilge? View full entry
The $120 million, 630,000-square-foot complex, called Anton Menlo, is a partnership between Facebook and Northern California residential real estate developer St. Anton Partners. Details of the financial arrangement, including Facebook's investment, were not disclosed.
Designed by Southern California KTGY Group, it will have a mix of studios and one, two and three-bedroom apartments. As part of Facebook's agreement with the city, 15 below-market-rate units are set aside for low-income tenants.
— sfgate.com