The Avery Building

The The Avery Building is a Contemporary skyscraper designed by OMA, with Shohei Shigematsu, and Jason Long as lead architect, in association with HKS, and built between 2014 and 2019 in San Francisco, CA.

The Avery Building is not the only name you might know this building by though. It is common for companies to want to attach their names to iconic buildings when they move in, or for the general public to come up with nicknames, and this one is no exception. The The Avery Building is also known, or has been known as, Transbay Block 8, or 400 Folsom.

Its precise street address is 488 Folsom Street, San Francisco, CA. You can also find it on the map here.

The building is composed of the tower and two lower buildings that form the podium.

A public passage divides the building's podium in two, connecting the neighborhood's main boulevard with a small pedestrian street. This division led to the creation of a commercial space that activates the base of the building and offers an urban living room with lush green walls and landscaping, providing a breathing space for the neighborhood .

OMA, with Shohei Shigematsu, and Jason Long as the lead architect, was the architecture firm in charge of the architectural design, in association with HKS.

But that's not all, there was also a whole team of architects involved, which included: Jay Jeffers, and Fougeron Architecture.

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 The Avery Building a reality:

• MAgnusson Klemencic Associates in charge of Structural Engineering
• Related California, and Tenderloin Neighborhood Development Corporation as the Main Developer
• CB Engineers in charge of MEP Engineering
• CMG, and Cliff Lowe Associates in charge of Landscape Architecture
• Clodagh Desing, and YA Studio in charge of Interior Design

The The Avery Building can be categorized as a Contemporary building.

The The Avery Building uses a frame structure made of concrete columns and beams.

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 blue-tinted glass curtain wall. Each module of the curtain wall is divided into 2 panes, a smaller one at the bottom, which can be opened for ventilation, and a larger, fixed one above.

The facade of the building is also the signature element that makes it stand out from other purely glass towers. A series of stepped projections on the facade break the otherwise squared box and create its unique silhouette.