San Francisco Federal Building
by Lloyd Alter, Toronto on 03. 9.07
Buildings used to be designed with the climate in mind with big opening windows to the exterior; shading and bris de soliel to the south; shallow working areas to maximize exposure to natural light. Mix the desire to build a green, efficient building with post 9/11 security and you have Thom Mayne's new San Francisco Federal Building. James Russell of Bloomberg says:
Mayne, principal of Santa Monica-based Morphosis, bracingly applies brute urban-industrial energy to his environmental agenda. The 3-foot-by-8-foot stainless-steel panels, which appear translucent, are supported in front of the all-glass building wall by a metal framework. Functionally, they shade the building from low winter sun, cutting daylight to a comfortable level for office workers.
That's just one of the ways the building cuts energy use. In total, it's designed to consume about half the power of a standard office tower -- an indication of how building design can help slash emissions of greenhouse gases.
Others have called it a Borg Cube, post-apocalyptic, `Very military-industrial complex''
More on green features from James Russell:
For all its architectural showmanship, the design painstakingly coordinates strategies that harvest sun and breezes to replace electric lighting and air-conditioning. The use of the metal panels came out of an emerging discipline called ``building physics,'' provided here by Ove Arup & Partners, a London-based international engineering giant.
Through a building-physics analysis, those panels were designed to retain accumulated solar heat as a thermal blanket over the building's facade. When that air warms, it floats upward, coaxing cooler air through the building via windows that open automatically when instructed by sensors. The result is free air-conditioning.
By carefully controlling unwanted glare on all sides, most people can work using the daylight from the floor-to-ceiling glass instead of electric lights. The north side has its own sunshade system, vertical milky-glass fins angled to protect occupants from late-afternoon summer sun.
Windows for All
With its ample daylight, soft breezes and gorgeous city views, the 575,000-square-foot federal building is a more pleasant place to work than today's sealed-up, tinted-glass buildings pumped full of refrigerated air. Even a worker in the ``worst'' seat, only about 25 feet from a window, can grab that precious daylight.
James Russell concludes:
While the federal building imports technologies and concepts developed in Europe more than a decade ago, it's revolutionary by U.S. standards -- and far ahead of the low-ambition ``greening'' prevalent in the private sector that touts bamboo flooring as an eco-credential. The G.S.A., Mayne and Arup have shown that U.S. buildings can set a much higher standard for workplace quality at considerably lower cost to the environment. ::Bloomberg
all pictures from San Francisco Chronicle, Kurt Rogers. See more here
Thirsty for more? Check out these related articles:
- Pink is the New Green
- GreenBuild: Richard Moe Has a Tough Row to Hoe
- San Francisco Considers Taking the Plunge on Congestion Pricing
- Will Safety Concerns Delay the Completion of the Expo Line in Los Angeles?
Really green?
Not this one says... from LATIMES...
"In fact, architects at Morphosis say it probably won't qualify even for a silver rating — let alone gold or platinum — from the U.S. Green Building Council....The folded panels, a Morphosis trademark, are visually dramatic. They are also entirely decorative. (Mayne doesn't even take the simple step of extending the panels over the plaza to shade the cafe's outdoor tables.) And they are supported by huge, V-shaped galvanized metal trusses — a lot of wasted steel for a building aiming for an eco-friendly label.....The tower's slender form — it is only 55 feet deep — is precisely what allows natural light and fresh air to reach the middle of each office floor. The Caltrans building, by contrast, is more than 100 feet deep at its narrowest point, and rather dismal inside.
The power of that simple gesture is a reminder that the most effective green-design gestures are often the most straightforward. And it makes the exterior of the building, with its vestiges of the old, pre-green Mayne, look all the more mannered and out of date."
There actually is a huge glare problem with this building. Employees next to the windows have to wear sunglasses. The scrim only shades about 20% of the glare. They're going to install a screen on the south side of the building.
that building, on my own viewpoint, is user-unfriendly. other than a lucrative estate in selling for good money and for gathering money purpose, that building is constructed in an extremely insensible way in many facets.
building a green, energy-saving house is supposed not to be an luxury architect. it was originated from the feeling of energy crisis. on this aspect, building a bamboo house with all the functionalities resembling those of that building is much more sensible, and going in this direction (here i'm not saying a bamboo house), building a house that is economic , while solid enough for endurance and in natural disastrous conditions, functioning as a natural, demand and challenge our human wisdom in many fields of knowledge. (i'm rejecting those beast wisdom in creating ugly things)
Does anyone know how this building has been performing since the original article was published? Has it been comfortable? Has it met the energy performance goals that it set for itself?
I have been trying to find out more about the building but had no success looking on the internet. This past summer (2008) was unusually hot in San Francisco (I'm a resident here) but I haven't heard too much more about the building's performance since the early reports after the building was first occupied (nearly a year ago).
-CSH
Chien, not sure if you've seen that:
http://www.beyondchron.org/articles/San_Francisco_s_Green_Building_Nightmare_5428.html
I'd love to hear from people working there if it's as bad as they say. I hope they exaggerate in this article.
Chien, not sure if you've seen that:
http://www.beyondchron.org/articles/San_Francisco_s_Green_Building_Nightmare_5428.html
I'd love to hear from people working there if it's as bad as they say. I hope they exaggerate in this article.