Project Description
FROM THE ARCHITECTS:
Located blocks from the San Francisco Bay, Transbay Block 8 will be an important anchor along the eastern end of Folsom Street. Comprised of a 575-foot tower (OMA) and two podium buildings (Fougeron Architecture), OMA’s masterplan for Block 8 defines a residential development with an urban gesture.
While residential towers are typically closed off from the life of the city around them, Block 8 opens the site to the public by introducing a mid-block paseo connecting Folsom Street―the neighborhood’s main boulevard—with Clementina―an intimate pedestrian corridor. Splitting the podium in two, the paseo activates the building’s base with an urban living room for the neighborhood.
The podium buildings framing the paseo utilize materials that draw from the neighborhood’s industrial past. Their form is shaped to maximize daylight while establishing a more intimate scale of architecture at the street.
At the west side of the site, a 55-story residential tower combines condominiums, market rate apartments and affordable housing with various shared amenity spaces. The same slice that creates the paseo translates vertically up the tower, tapering the building and reorienting residences toward more prominent views of the city and the bay. While the subtly stepped north side of the tower is shaped to react to the paseo, the south side is sculpted to create a crenellated façade that enhances views to the bay. The tower’s form links the building to the neighborhood while creating a unique profile within the Bay Area skyline.