just for the heck of it

https://c3.staticflickr.com/9/8103/2...5c22bb85_b.jpg

excavating down... this is looking north along the eastern edge of the project

https://c5.staticflickr.com/6/5826/3...5d151bb0_b.jpg

deeper...

https://c4.staticflickr.com/6/5768/3...b9e1011d_b.jpg

https://c7.staticflickr.com/1/304/32...017f62ae_b.jpg

https://c7.staticflickr.com/1/412/31...24662fd2_b.jpg

this one has gotten pretty deep now

https://c1.staticflickr.com/1/455/31...51d5159b_b.jpg

they might be done going down. pics never do these massive digs justice

https://c1.staticflickr.com/3/2836/3...bc2df482_b.jpg

https://c1.staticflickr.com/1/258/32...21ba7e32_b.jpg

Impressive excavation! That picture got me to look up details of the basement, and I found this:

The building will have 286 parking spaces on six basement levels. With the foundation, it looks like the excavation will go down about as far as the podium will eventually go up:

https://i.imgur.com/A7Zgm4t.jpg

More reading:

http://sfocii.org/sites/default/file...-5gh-Part1.pdf
http://sfocii.org/sites/default/file...-5gh-Part2.pdf
http://sfocii.org/sites/default/file...-5gh-Part3.pdf
http://sfocii.org/sites/default/file...-5gh-Part4.pdf

^^
Just a few blocks away "bedrock" is 250 ft down. Hard to believe it's (much) less than 100 ft down in this spot.

Rincon Hill is bedrock, so you don't have to go very far to hit bedrock just across the street. And if you imagine the bedrock continuing to slope downward at the same angle as Rincon (slightly greater than 100 feet per block), you can envision how deep it gets between Folsom and Mission.

Looks like the thread needs to be updated with the proper height. The building is 447' to "roof" level, and around 470' to the top of the structure.

No, it's 400' to the roof, which is the height limit. The elevations are above grade, which is 47 feet above the city zero datum...

This probably makes the heights clearer (I hope):

https://im1.shutterfly.com/media/47a...D550/ry%3D400/
http://sfocii.org/sites/default/file...-5gh-Part1.pdf

And the thread title seems to be correct the way such things are measured on this site.

Whoops, my bad. I didn't look at the diagram closely enough.

i call BS
 

Goettsch beat SOM to the punch by a longshot; copyright infringement?

http://www.archdaily.com/802761/al-h...ttsch-partners

Jesus what's with all these forumers desperately trying to show how every new building in San Francisco is merely a ripoff of another somewhere else? News flash...this can be said of most buildings including the ones you think are so bloody original.

^^Truly original archtecture is difficult to do and even more difficult to get bureaucracies and citizen critics to accept. It's very unlikely anything really ground-breaking could be approved in SF and even if it ultimately were, it would be delayed and studied to death first. A developer trying to make money (almost all of them . . .almost) doesn't need that. He wants quick, painless approval. Note what Renzo Piano, who has done some radical things in his day including a group of towers right here in SF (at 50 First St) that, as I would have guessed, was never built, is proposing at 555 Howard: A building as plainly modernist and inoffensive as could be imagined. And note how swiftly it's getting approved because there is almost nothing to criticize except the lack of anything to criticize (or like especially except, for some, the rooftop open space).

SF is an extremely conservative establishment city in many ways, which is reflected in the architecture. It lost it's bohemian/ creative/ alternative edge many moons ago. The pyramid is actually a very alternative futuristic design that would not be built today. SF is more of a midtown Manhattan than Prague.

^^^ I'm constantly irritated by this argument. If this were true there would be not Transamerica Pyramid or a number of these new towers. Look around at most skylines and you won't see a lot of ground-breaking design or very good high-rise architecture for that matter. Not because of governments or NIMBYs but they typically cost more to build.

^^Not in the US, no, because, Chicago maybe excepted (I don't know much about the process there), some of the same bureaucratic steps must be navigated by developers in many larger US cities. But look, for example, at London (I won't even mention the D-word). Can you imagine SF having a shard or gherkin? I can't. I'm not sure why. I mean some of the companies occupying these buildings are US companies and I doubt the developers have more money to throw around than in SF.