The Park Tower at Transbay is a Contemporary skyscraper designed by Goettsch Partners , in association with Solomon Cordwell Buenz, and built between 2015 and 2018 in San Francisco, CA.
Its precise street address is 250 Howard Street, San Francisco, CA. You can also find it on the map here.
Goettsch Partners was the architecture firm in charge of the architectural design, in association with Solomon Cordwell Buenz. But there was also one other architect involved, as far as we know. We are talking about Stevens + Associates Architects.
Goettsch Partners is a Chicago-based firm traces its roots back to 1938 when Mies van der Rohe's protégé, Gene Summers, and renowned architect Walter Netsch started the Chicago office of Skidmore, Owings & Merrill (SOM). However, the modern iteration of Goettsch Partners was officially established in 2005, evolving from its predecessors Loebl Schlossman & Hackl and the architecture practice of James Goettsch.
The firm is recognized for its expertise in designing high-performance, innovative buildings, including commercial office towers, mixed-use complexes, hotels, and institutional buildings.
Their buildings are usually modern designs that emphasize functionality, sustainability, and sophisticated aesthetics.
That being said, architecture is a complex discipline involving many professionals from different fields, without whom this building would have not been possible. We will surely be leaving out a lot of names here, but here is a list of the people we do know also played their part in making the Park Tower at Transbay a reality:
The Park Tower at Transbay can be categorized as a Contemporary building.
Contemporary style architecture builds on top of the principles of Modernism and Postmodernism, but incorporates other variables which might not have been that important in the past, but certainly are today, such as technology, sustainability, inclusivity, and others.
From a historical point of view, it is hard to categorize things from a not-so-distant time, and therefore we choose to categorize most buildings built after the year 2000 as "Contemporary". It is possible that as time goes by and we, as a society, gain perspective on the things happening today, we'll be able to look back and recategorize all these buildings into more concrete subsections, some of which might not even exist today.
The Park Tower at Transbay reaches an architectural height of 604ft (184m), with the last accesible floor being 558ft (170m) off the gorund. It has a total of 45 floors, 43 above ground and 2 basements.
In regards to parking space, the building has a total of 117 spots available, which roughly equals 3 spots per floor (above ground).
Ever since opening its doors to the public in 2018, the Park Tower at Transbay has mainly been used as Commercial space.
The Park Tower at Transbay uses a frame structure made of steel columns and concrete slabs.
A frame structure uses a combination of beams and columns to sustain the building's weight. The walls in this case are non-load bearing, which allows for more flexibility when distributing the interior spaces.
The facade uses a non-load bearing curtain wall system. This means the curtain wall modules are anchored to the building's structural frame, typically by being attached to the edge of the floor slabs. The curtain wall system connects to the slabs using brackets, anchors, and mullions, which transfer the loads imposed by wind and temperature changes, to the building's primary structural elements.
This setup allows the curtain wall to accommodate differential movement between the facade and the structural frame, such as thermal expansion, floor deflection, or sway from wind forces. This system's integration with the slab edges also allows for continuous insulation and weatherproofing layers.
From an aesthetic point of view, the facade features a dark blue tinted glass curtain wall.
The tower's volume features multiple substractions which create large terraces as the building ascends.
The silhouette of the building is slightly angled on one side and at the top, creating unexpected perspective views.
