Building A, commissioned by MVRDV, will be part of the new Mission Rock development: 11 hectares of waterfront land previously occupied by the San Francisco Giants baseball stadium. The owners of the team, the Port of San Francisco Authority and the developer Tishman Speyer, have envisioned the area as a mixed-use development soon.
The first phase of the project includes four residential and office buildings and a park that bends around them from the side of the bay. The buildings were commissioned by renowned bureaus: Studio Gang, Henning Larsen, WORKac - and MVRDV; their implementation should begin in the first months of 2020.
The 23-storey building A was named "Canyon" by its authors: its podium seems to be broken in two, a narrow valley passes through it, and the sides of the "fault" are cut by terraces. The "pixelation" of one of the tower's facades continues the theme of uneven surfaces, which are supposed to imitate the spectacular cliffs of California. This is the MVRDV architects' response to a completely flat coastal area, very different from the rest - the varied and complex - terrain of San Francisco, which is combined with the rigid grid of its layout.
China Basin Park approaches the building A itself and continues there with cafes and shops on the ground floors and a green podium roof. The second and third floors are occupied by offices (4645 m2), above are the apartments - there will be about 285 of them. Their sizes and configurations due to the "pixel" facade will be very diverse, and thanks to it, residents will have balconies-terraces.
