PROJECT OVERVIEW

Rising 23 stories above California’s San Francisco Bay, the newest tower in the Mission Rock development, Building F, is a showstopper with its green ceramic tile exterior and staggered terraces. The mixed-use building, which includes multifamily housing plus commercial and retail space, features glazed brick, assembled tile corners, and vertically and horizontally nested frames, where the cantilevered skin of a panel overlaps and conceals the frame of the adjacent panel.

Read more about this project in the Fall 2023 issue of Ascent.

PRECAST SOLUTION

The project’s façade is a hybrid, incorporating both precast concrete and a steel frame. Other materials were used as needed to optimize structural efficiency and aesthetic outcome, such as the prominent green terracotta tile exterior skin. Precast concrete panels are welded to the steel frame.

Architect

Studio Gang

Owners

Port of San Francisco, San Francisco Giants, Tishman Speyer

Contractor

Webcor Builders

Structural Engineer

Magnusson Klemencic Assoc.

Precast Concrete Producer

Clark Pacific

Key Project Attributes

• The façade is a hybrid, incorporating both precast concrete and a steel frame. Other materials were used as needed to optimize structural efficiency and aesthetic outcome, such as the prominent green terracotta tile exterior skin. Precast concrete panels are welded to the steel frame.
• Terraces are oriented and shaped to maximize sunlight and minimize wind as well as provide views of the surrounding city and San Francisco Bay. Horizontal spandrels alternate in profile to tune the solar and wind exposure of units to their climate and orientation.
• The ceramic exterior tiles, along with the stepped outdoor terraces, create a unique look that contractor Webcor Builders’ Lindsey Blatz believes is desired by today’s city planning departments.

Project/Precast Scope

• 622 total pieces of precast concrete, including 22,472 square feet of architectural precast concrete and 70,401 square feet of Clark Composite Architectural Precast Panels with 719 punched windows.
• More than 200,000 green glazed ceramic tiles were inlaid architectural precast concrete.
• The precast concrete façade system made it possible to combine the material quality of glazed ceramics with three-dimensional depth, echoing the stepped quality of the building massing at the scale of each individual precast concrete panel.