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In classical stereometry, there is undoubtedly a theory regarding the perfectly turned corner: the way a front façade, for instance, meets a side elevation; or some ideal geometry to describe a quarter column seemingly embedded in a solid block of architectural form.
Such appreciation for the mathematics of non-rectilinear massing and the integration of multiple elements of construction is intrinsic to Building B recently completed by WORKac at the Mission Rock development in San Francisco. It is the first West Coast project for the New York-based practice and their first venture into high-performance commercial real estate. With a master plan developed by Perkins&Will for developers Tishman Speyer and the local Giants baseball team, Mission Rock is designed to be a new quarter of the city, sited directly on San Francisco Bay with views east across the water, where tankers wait patiently in lines to dock at Oakland, and north directly into Oracle Park, the home stadium of the Giants.
The new urban quarter rises from flat ground previously used for surface parking, extremely valuable of course on game days, and fringed on its Bay edge by finger-like linear piers extending out. As part of the masterplan, in consultation with the City of San Francisco and approved by public ballot, four of what will eventually be nine buildings – each a discrete urban block – have now been built.
A new park by Scape occupies the irregularly shaped terrain immediately next to the channel of water separating Mission Rock from the ballpark. The north-east block by Henning Larsen is already occupied by Visa, the credit card company launched in San Francisco in 1976. To its west rises the tallest of the new buildings, MVRDV’s The Canyon, its reddish massing split to shelter a raised diagonal promenade. South of Visa is the second residential tower, the green Building F by Studio Gang.
The fourth quadrant is occupied, and animated,...
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