THE VIEW FROM INSIDE
TOWER'S PREMIERE: Futuristic Federal Building wins fans, foes among workers with its innovative features
John King, Chronicle Urban Design Writer
Sunday, July 8, 2007
The new Federal Building at Seventh and Mission in San Francisco
When Nancy Pelosi and other dignitaries gather Monday to dedicate San Francisco's Federal Building, the grand opening will be old news to people like Janis Olvarado and Anita Yeung.
They've been working in the futuristic tower with its steel mesh sheath since March. They've dealt with eccentric temperature swings and unexpected glare. They've become acquainted with a neighborhood where there are more shopping carts than shops.
By now it's starting to feel like home -- a home where every resident seems to have a different opinion about the provocative design and its environmental innovations.
"It's so futuristic, so politically correct, so green, I adore it. ... It makes me want to come to work," said Olvarado, an employee with the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, a division of the Department of Health and Human Services.
"Everything is so gray. I just don't find it appealing," countered Yeung, who works at the same agency. She has an umbrella propped above her computer to reduce the glare from the 13-foot-tall, south-facing window next to her cubicle.
Monday's ceremony marks the official completion of the complex, which houses 1,700 federal employees in an 18-story tower and a four-story annex that frame a plaza at Seventh and Mission streets. The dedication is an invitation-only event.
Beginning Tuesday, the public will be able to go inside and -- once they pass the security checkpoint -- visit the open-air "skygarden" on the 11th floor, or the distinctive entry atrium that architect Thom Mayne has likened to the interior of a Gothic cathedral.
The ceremony will stress the architectural emphasis on employee health and green design -- such as natural ventilation that replaces air conditioning on most floors, or the tower elevators that stop only on every third floor, making employees use stairs to reach floors in-between.
The design by Mayne's firm Morphosis, which was assisted by SmithGroup, already has won praise from such distant voices as the New York Times and England's Architectural Review.
But early reviews in-house weren't as kind.
Elevators stalled and temperatures veered from one extreme to the other depending on the time of day. Another complaint: The floor-to-ceiling windows overloaded cubicles with sunlight -- even though the perforated steel panels along the south-facing wall were supposed to filter glare while allowing in natural light that cuts down on electricity use.
Since then, some design details have been tweaked.
Blinds are being installed on southern windows. Government officials concede they underestimated the amount of glare that would penetrate the mesh skin.
There also are changes along the plaza, where the mesh panels stop above a grass berm. Derelicts have scaled the berm at night, slid under the panels and dropped down into an area that will serve an about-to-open day care center. In response, tightly spaced cables will be strung horizontally between the berm and the columns that support the panels.
But for the most part, building officials say the early glitches were just that -- glitches, the inevitable bumps that accompany the completion of a large structure.
"This is a new building with complex systems. It takes awhile for us to dial in," said Warren Sitterley, the property manager for the General Services Administration. "That would have been true even if this was a perfectly conventional building."
Sitterley said it could be a year before all the quirks are resolved. It also could take that much time for people to adjust to the tower's ecological sensibility. For instance, the natural ventilation system doesn't have the precise stability that comes from typical heating or air conditioning. The building's temperature ranges from about 68 to 81 degrees.
"There's a wider range of temperatures here than you'll find in a normal building," Sitterley said. "If someone's expecting 67 degrees every moment of the summer, they're going to be disappointed."
Another catch: The complex sits between Sixth Street and United Nations Plaza, two of the diciest locations in central San Francisco. The short walk from the Civic Center subway station can be a squalid trek.
Many workers moved from offices on Hawthorne Street, a quiet edge of the Financial District close by the buoyant Second Street lunchtime scene.
Count Yeung among the homesick.
"There's culture shock, I guess," Yeung said. "I really liked that area. This one has a different ... clientele."
Yeung's misgivings don't stop with the address. She's put off by the monochromatic design ("I thought it was strange looking"). She doesn't open the window next to her cubicle because the noise from outside makes it hard to hear her telephone.
As for the skip-stop elevators, Yeung doesn't always use them. Like other employees, she sometimes takes the easy route: an elevator cab that stops at every floor to provide access for people with disabilities.
Olvarado, however, is an absolute convert.
She lives on Nob Hill, and as she watched the 345-foot-wide concrete slab rise from the relatively low valley of buildings near Civic Center, "I thought I was going to hate it, that it was going to be this huge monolith." She also describes the first month in the building as "rough," with erratic elevators and harsh glare.
But now?
"I think it's fabulous," Olvarado said. She keeps her window open, and she loves the skip-stop elevators. She walks to work ("I don't feel threatened at all") and once inside "I feel like I'm still outside. There are no impediments blocking my view."
While some workers have already made up their mind about the design, others accept that their new home is a work in progress.
"Everything that's new takes a little getting used to," said Leonardo Coard La Barrie, who works on the floor above Yeung and Olvarado. "It's a different life experience, and that requires patience."
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How politically incorrect and how true! 
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