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  #41  
Old Posted Mar 31, 2021, 4:45 AM
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Originally Posted by the urban politician View Post
^ Tech definitely has no soul.

Spending all day sitting in front of a laptop is soooo not sexy or full of personality, I don't care how you dress.

When I think of "soul" in a corporate sense, what comes to mind is those traders in the film The Wolf on Wall St.

And tech has even sucked the soul out of that industry. Tech is the OPPOSITE of soul. If soul is MATTER, then tech is ANTI-MATTER. There is nothing soulful about tech. Tech is anti-human. It degrades our species in every way.
wack. i'm curious if you really think all tech is bad, or if you're just calling out specific areas. you're posting this on the internet... almost every aspect of your porsche relies on software running on multiple computer modules networked together, not to mention all of the CAD and other scientific modeling software used to design and optimize it... the medical industry relies heavily on tech for all kinds of shit - folding@home/supercomputers modeling proteins and AWS for running algorithms for sequencing mRNA
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  #42  
Old Posted Mar 31, 2021, 5:02 AM
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Originally Posted by homebucket View Post
Tech is a pretty diverse field in of itself though. It's not just cloud computing and software. There's consumer electronics, gaming, AI, IT/cyber security, biotech, aerospace, autonomous vehicles, renewable energy. A lot of these employees believe it or not are actually passionate about these emerging technologies.

Would you rather the US not innovate in this particular industries? Ok, so you don't like tech. What is the follow-up then?
Nah, tech is cool even when it's a pain in the ass. Admittedly, I enjoy life with as little of it as possible. But, I was talking more about that if you're in that field and working it all day that it can get old. I live in a tech city, and I know good well people here know what I mean. My brother is one of them, and he says after work he's off the computer and going outdoors for fresh air and recreation. I just meant that sitting in an office all day entering code can be really monotonous. I will say, though, that tech companies have gotten smarter to that with the way they design their offices, and developers and architects have gotten better at designing buildings for them. The trend here lately has been office towers with outdoor spaces. 6 X Guadalupe is going to be a 65-story building with over an acre of outdoor space "in" the building in the form of balconies, notches and a plaza above the podium.

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Originally Posted by jtown,man View Post
How is there even a debate? Salesforce took SF from an average skyline to an incredible one.
I wouldn't have really called their skyline average. I always felt like even with how basic some of San Francisco's buildings can be, the Transamerica Pyramid was always able to tie it all together somehow, along with the Bank of America Tower. For me now, when I see the Salesforce Tower and 181 Freemont, I think those two, along with the Oceanwide Center I, assuming it happens, really fit in San Francisco's skyline better than I had feared they wouldn't. No matter how basic some of San Francisco's buildings are, that skyline is so unique that the thought of something as big as the Salesforce Tower was kind of scary that it might ruin what the city had. Those three new talls, though, I think really compliment and complement the pyramid well. The angles in their facades and vertical emphasis makes sense.
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  #43  
Old Posted Mar 31, 2021, 5:28 AM
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Wall Street as a more soulful alternative is an interesting choice, to be sure. Here is an existence proof that tech has indeed has a soul: https://github.com/soul-lang/SOUL/bl...UL_Overview.md
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  #44  
Old Posted Mar 31, 2021, 5:59 AM
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Originally Posted by Steely Dan View Post
i'd like to hear an honest consensus architectural assessment from san franciscans of saleforce's new SF tower, not the highly selective and self-reinforcing feedback loop responses given to us by someone who CLEARLY has an axe to grind.

i myself feel like it's the crowning peak the SF skyline has desperately needed as it grew ever more "plateau-ish" over the decades since the heady days of transamerica and BofA.

but i'm just an internet skyscraper nerd from chicago, not a san franciscan, so what do i know?
I think the overall consensus from SF Bay Area nonskyscarper nerds is mixed at worst, but generally good. I've noticed the ones that are native to SF (city proper) tend to not like the tower and what it represents, the tech and what they view as outsider, takeover. They tend to not like change. SF residents can be a bit uppity in this way, where you can't claim you're from SF unless you actually live within the city limits.

The ones I feel that generally find the tower more impressive and a sight to behold are those from surrounding Bay Area cities, or transplants from other parts of the state or country, which kinda makes sense, since to them, SF is "The City" around here, so of course it must have big skyscrapers. Since this "outsider" population is actually far greater than the SF city proper population, the overall consensus skews towards good. People take pictures of it all the time and are amused by the LED crown. I don't get the sense that there is an intensifying loathing doom and gloom that the author in the OP is projecting. I'm aware there is a loud minority that strongly dislikes the tower, but they're definitely in the minority.

Overall, architecturally speaking, I think it's an excellent addition to the skyline. I would've much rather preferred one of the original competing designs by SOM, but this tower has certainly grown on me, most notably with its dynamic texture. It changes with every angle, and the way the sky reflects off of it can be breathtaking, kind of giving it a pearlescent quality. It also adds a new peak to the skyline (breaking the plateau as you mentioned), extending it southwards, and it gets framed in really nicely by the surrounding topography.







http://conniezhou.com/portfolio/portfolio/salesforce
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  #45  
Old Posted Mar 31, 2021, 6:15 AM
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Originally Posted by KevinFromTexas View Post
I will say, though, that tech companies have gotten smarter to that with the way they design their offices, and developers and architects have gotten better at designing buildings for them. The trend here lately has been office towers with outdoor spaces. 6 X Guadalupe is going to be a 65-story building with over an acre of outdoor space "in" the building in the form of balconies, notches and a plaza above the podium.
That's interesting since I believe Facebook is rumored to lease some of the office space at 6 X Guadalupe. They also have leased all 750,000 sq ft of a recently completed SF office tower with outdoor space and notched balconies as well, on a podium. So it appears that they are targeting a similar type of space in Austin.






Photos by me.
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  #46  
Old Posted Mar 31, 2021, 6:26 AM
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Originally Posted by Steely Dan View Post
i'd like to hear an honest consensus architectural assessment from san franciscans of saleforce's new SF tower, not the highly selective and self-reinforcing feedback loop responses given to us by someone who CLEARLY has an axe to grind.

i myself feel like it's the crowning peak the SF skyline has desperately needed as it grew ever more "plateau-ish" over the decades since the heady days of transamerica and BofA.

but i'm just an internet skyscraper nerd from chicago, not a san franciscan, so what do i know?
You have clued into exactly what the SF Planning Dept. intended when they published this diagram in the mid 20-teens:



The so-called "downtown mound" will be more or less fully realized if and when the buildings known as 550 Howard (aka Transbay Parcel F) and Oceanwide Center are completed. The bookending high points are more or less complete with Rincon Hill built out and, of course, Telegraph Hill where it is for quite a long time.

The Pelli design was not my choice of the 3 finalists in the "beauty contest" for the one and only 1200 ft--zoned (later cut to 1000 ft) lot in downtown SF, but I'm happy with it and it does what Planning wanted it to do.

In rather liked the SOM design:


https://transbaydiaries.wordpress.co...n-competition/

And the most interesting, if not the "cleanest" was this:


https://transbaydiaries.wordpress.co...n-competition/

Note that the original design criteria called for a number of green features including wind power generation. Hence the giant turbine on top of this design.
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  #47  
Old Posted Mar 31, 2021, 4:28 PM
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The weirdest part of this op-ed is the complaint that you can see the top of the tower, but not the rest of the skyline, from all over the city/region. I think that's a cool feature, not something to complain about! I remember being able to see the top part of the US Steel building from my grandparents house in Pittsburgh's South Hills neighborhood and thinking that was really neat, as their neighborhood wasn't exactly super urban.

And I was just in SF this past weekend, and I loved seeing the top of the Salesforce building peaking over the hills in Pac Heights: https://www.google.com/maps/@37.7891...7i16384!8i8192

I think the tower is a modern landmark for SF, and is another point of visual interest, like the Coit Tower, Sutro Tower, the bridges, Transamerica Building, etc.

Last edited by edale; Mar 31, 2021 at 5:24 PM.
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  #48  
Old Posted Mar 31, 2021, 5:08 PM
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Quote:
Originally Posted by yuriandrade View Post
It’s a beautiful tower and I hope people will soon be back to work.

It gives San Francisco a futuristic Star Trek quality, very nice addition to the skyline.
Well. Star fleet is based in San Francisco so maybe this building will be their headquarters. In about a hundred years, James Tiberius Kirk will be chasing some green tail around that plaza.
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  #49  
Old Posted Mar 31, 2021, 5:25 PM
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"The Salesforce Tower will stand for centuries"

Not if the Millennium Tower knocks it over.
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  #50  
Old Posted Mar 31, 2021, 8:12 PM
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Quote:
Originally Posted by homebucket View Post
That's interesting since I believe Facebook is rumored to lease some of the office space at 6 X Guadalupe. They also have leased all 750,000 sq ft of a recently completed SF office tower with outdoor space and notched balconies as well, on a podium. So it appears that they are targeting a similar type of space in Austin.
We've been talking about it in the Austin section. These "notched" office towers. While I'm not crazy about the look they create, though, I do think they can be done in a way that is more of an attractive design feature, I certainly understand from their perspective of wanting outdoor spaces for their tenents. In fact, one of Google's towers in Austin has an airstream trailer in one of those notches that they use as a food court. I just worry that they'll become repetitive in their execution and become a dated fixture of skylines. We already have 4 of them now. 3 that are complete, and another one (6 X Guadalupe) that is under construction.

Quote:
Originally Posted by JManc View Post
Well. Star fleet is based in San Francisco so maybe this building will be their headquarters. In about a hundred years, James Tiberius Kirk will be chasing some green tail around that plaza.
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  #51  
Old Posted Mar 31, 2021, 8:43 PM
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One thing about the Salesforce Tower though: It just always makes me think of a giant sandworm from Arakis.


http://planetfuraha.blogspot.com/201...s-of-dune.html
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  #52  
Old Posted Mar 31, 2021, 10:07 PM
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I liked the SOM proposal better then Pelli's, but Salesforce is one gorgeous tower. Haters are gonna hate, but there's no question it really turbocharges San Francisco's skyline game:


source
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  #53  
Old Posted Mar 31, 2021, 10:31 PM
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Media sensationalism aside, I do think the tower was a missed opportunity and the horizontal lines are not flattering.

César Pelli just plopped down his generic obelisk design he already did in other cities. Like it's almost literally the same tower as that one in Santiago.

I always liked SF's skyline, it had perfect balance, I think supertall heights were the last thing it needed.
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  #54  
Old Posted Mar 31, 2021, 10:36 PM
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Originally Posted by Obadno View Post
We do not build things to stand for centuries.

If this building is to last for more than 150 years it will require massive retrofitting to keep from collapsing.
We don't? Almost every pre-war skyscraper in the US is about to turn 100 this decade.
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  #55  
Old Posted Mar 31, 2021, 11:00 PM
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Quote:
Originally Posted by craigs View Post
I liked the SOM proposal better then Pelli's, but Salesforce is one gorgeous tower. Haters are gonna hate, but there's no question it really turbocharges San Francisco's skyline game:
Yeah, the SOM design would've been legendary, like a chrysler building, john hancock center, or HK's bank of china.

But what SF ended up with is still pretty nice, if not necessarily a design for the ages.

And yeah, what skyscraper nerd doesn't love some good old fashioned plateau destruction?
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  #56  
Old Posted Mar 31, 2021, 11:16 PM
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Downtown San Francisco's "plateau" skyline--a couple dozen boxy 500-600 ft. towers, plus TA and BofA--bored the world for over 35 years. When so many other city skylines were hitting dramatic new heights, the old plateau seemed especially squat and inert. Even among people who love downtown skylines, downtown SF was rarely anybody's favorite. It exuded all the beauty and drama of a collection of refrigerators.


source

I'm so very glad that the boring plateau is no more. And while Salesforce is obviously a Pelli, it's a well-executed Pelli.
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  #57  
Old Posted Mar 31, 2021, 11:52 PM
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I agree that it's an extremely well executed building, but as someone who has seen in person all of Pelli's taller works (with the notable exception of Santiago), I find it rather unremarkable. There isn't anything intrinsic to the City (which is odd from a master contextualist like Pelli) and it didn't break any new ground. To me it's the equivalent of the tallest building in Jacksonville, which was iteration #6 of One Liberty Place by Jahn. Architects (particularly skyscraper architects) do this. It's a further exploration of form and facade design.

It's a good one, no doubt. But for me always leaves me pondering what SOM's tower would have looked like glowing in the sun.
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  #58  
Old Posted Apr 1, 2021, 12:00 AM
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I agree that it's an extremely well executed building, but as someone who has seen in person all of Pelli's taller works (with the notable exception of Santiago), I find it rather unremarkable. There isn't anything intrinsic to the City (which is odd from a master contextualist like Pelli) and it didn't break any new ground. To me it's the equivalent of the tallest building in Jacksonville, which was iteration #6 of One Liberty Place by Jahn. Architects (particularly skyscraper architects) do this. It's a further exploration of form and facade design.

It's a good one, no doubt. But for me always leaves me pondering what SOM's tower would have looked like glowing in the sun.
I totally agree. I like the tower, I think it looks good, but it was sort of a "safe" design, not really avant-garde; not groundbreaking, like you said.
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  #59  
Old Posted Apr 1, 2021, 2:38 AM
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What disappoints me about the tower is the displays at the top. They always seem rather a hazy blue. I wished for something crisper and more colorful.

Video Link


Apparently the equipment is capable of more. Loved the Eye of Sauron:

Video Link
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  #60  
Old Posted Apr 1, 2021, 2:42 AM
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Quote:
Originally Posted by craigs View Post
Downtown San Francisco's "plateau" skyline--a couple dozen boxy 500-600 ft. towers, plus TA and BofA--bored the world for over 35 years. When so many other city skylines were hitting dramatic new heights, the old plateau seemed especially squat and inert. Even among people who love downtown skylines, downtown SF was rarely anybody's favorite. It exuded all the beauty and drama of a collection of refrigerators.


source

I'm so very glad that the boring plateau is no more. And while Salesforce is obviously a Pelli, it's a well-executed Pelli.
(off-topic... but this picture is why SF reminds me of Boston).

Salesforce definitely changes the entire dynamic of the skyline, which will always make people uncomfortable.
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