Trumark Urban’s proposed development of a nine-story building at 923 Folsom Street, adjacent to San Francisco’s new Fire Station #1 and across the Street from Mosso at 900 Folsom, has been approved.
Designed by Solomon Cordwell Buenz, the project includes 114 condos, 80 underground parking spaces, and 1,600 square feet of retail which will front Folsom Street.
In addition to the nine-story building along Folsom, the development includes a four-story building on the south side of the lot fronting Shipley Street, with a rooftop deck and mid‐block courtyard for residents between the two.
The planned unit mix for the development includes eight studios, 59 one-bedroom and 47 two-bedrooms. Fourteen of the condos (one studio, eight one-bedrooms, and five two-bedrooms) will be for Below Market Rate buyers.
I am thankful for the trees that mask the horrors of the relentlessly ugly boxes that pass for architecture in these developments.
I am thankful for all the new trees being added to our city, along with new residential development. design will always be subjective. Any given design will NEVER please everyone. Let the architects do their job.
Do their job? You mean maximizing developer profits?
Last time I checked that’s how architecture worked.
Yes. Most likely, the exact same mechanism used to build the structure you inhabit.
You caught them?!
Profit from any kind of business enterprise is not illegal. Perhaps you would enjoy life better in Communist China in worker housing?
Now that you mention it, that’s exactly what it looks like.
if only people would build buildings for the goodness of their own kind… and rainbows… and sunflowers… and babies. not any of this evil dirty “profit” stuff! how DARE they TAINT, yes TAINT our fair city with their monies for buildings?! my house was built by bartering with a jute co-op.
Actually, China is producing more interesting and innovative architecture than we are. Look at the “Bird’s Nest” stadium by Herzog & DeMeuron and the CCTV building by Koolhaas.
it’s a wonderful thing when you don’t have any unions or workers rights. those people move into camp towns and work 24 hours on buildings. in america, labor is always more expensive that materials.
Why have these out-of-town architects selected our city to ruin with their half-baked designs? It’s almost as if SCB & Architectonica are in competition with each other on who can design a worse building. I guess I should be thankful this project is not 40+ stories tall. SCB has already ruined our skyline with a few of those!
Oh boo hoo. Our poor skyline.
Then go to school for 5 years, get some experience, take the architects licensing exam, and IF you pass then open your own firm to design what you think is NOT half baked.
The armchair critics here never cease to amaze with me with their uninformed rant about design.
Anyone on here is a critic, including those who say they’ve been to Architecture school….
How can we distinguish between “informed” and “uninformed” rants? Should we require an arts or architecture degree before posting opinions? Having studied architecture and worked with a great
architect, I would put myself in the “informed” category. But, perhaps not.
Don’t forget Handel Architects
The type of buildings being built here are being built all over the world right now, no one has “selected our city to ruin”. It’s all about economics. There are amazing buildings being built in countries where labor costs are a fraction of what they are here, like Singapore and Russia. And there are amazing buildings being built in places that simply have more money than San Francisco, like New York and London.
Everything that’s being built here now is a vast improvement over the vapid 1960s boxes, the viral 1980s Richmond Specials, and the infestation of flat-front one story Victorians that are not only ugly but functionally obsolete.
I think these posts lamenting the design of these new buildings most be from out-of-towers. Those of use who live in SF know SOMA is flat and ugly, has no trees, and it is full of poorly maintained, old, and ugly buildings (there are a handful of exceptions, but most of the buildings should be torn down). Any new building going up in SOMA is an improvement simply because it is not a rundown ugly building.
They are not ruining anything. These new buildings are not replacing anything worth keeping.
Question: who would you both suggest as a architecturally more pleasing alternative to the current plans..just curious
this is remarkably few units for the amount of land it is taking. why are people building for the present instead of the future? this ugly squat short suburban box will be here for another 50 yrs.
Agreed, criminal level of underbuilding.
I like those balconies.
Mannerism.
Profit from any kind of business enterprise is not illegal. Perhaps you would enjoy life better in Communist China in worker housing?
But the market produces both French Laundries and Denny’s, Folgers and Blue Bottles, Googles and Zyngas, exceptional buildings and bland ones.
People want what they want and the market will provide. So the solution is to advocate for smarter behavior on the demand side.
If you think that a Grand Slam breakfast is the pinnacle of haute cuisine it’s not the market’s fault if most restaurants are Denny’s quality. And it doesn’t make someone who advocates for better quality food a Communist.
The trouble with that train of thought is that the “market”, or call it the “public” or the “average man/woman on the street” simply does not know, nor understand, anything about urban architectural design. they don’t like, or rarely like what is being built here in SF. and they don’t really know why, they just don’t. they simply reduce their idea of “critique” to calling it a suburban box, or half baked.
Does it matter? not really. Architects don’t really care what the public thinks. Architects work for, and care about what the developer owner wants, what works for approvals, what fits the budget, and very importantly the particular design philosophy/ideology of that particular architect.
That’s what really matters. That’s how design works.
I would argue that architects should design buildings for the people who live in and near them. And that’s what really matters.
Ok, elaborate on what you just said. Architects do exactly what you would like them to do.
Architectural design is a business and a service. They are in it to make money, not always much, and developers are in the business to make money. Trust me: these units will all sell and quickly.
Sounds like its time for architects to control their future. They should give being a “developer owner” a shot, and as they talk about in tech – be a vertically integrated provider. That should lead to some very interesting designs totally conceived of, developed and marketed by the architects.
The design’s fine.
I’m just somewhere between chortling and aghast that housing is what someone wants to build adjacent to a fire station.
That’s true. I remember when the station was next to the W Hotel some of the guests would complain about the constant emergency vehicle noise. It will require a lot of sound proofing.
I would assume/expect that they would install additional sound insulation to….um….insulate them from the issues that potential buyers might have with that location.
@Sierrajeff: Yes. I live between 7th & 8th and I’ve started to seriously wonder if my tinnitus has been caused by the god-awful number of emergency vehicles that pass by daily and not that Who concert I attended in ’78. I now plug my ears.
Ten more please! Decent density and design is design, WE NEED HOUSING.
I think it looks fine… Nice even! But I’m middle aged+, so I do also understand the pleasure and self-satisfaction that comes from bitching about new things … “They just don’t make them like they used to in my day, the seventies!! Now THAT was architecture”
Why only four stories on Shipley?
I believe it’s to scale down the massing on that side to relate to the existing context and height of Shipley.
Sierrajeff: The noise IS a problem there. I’m at 4th and Folsom and very glad not to be at 5th and Folsom next to the new fire station.
And then we’d have tons of great looking sketches that receive accolades for design and never get built.