The Harrison Building vs Millennium Tower

Comparing the The Harrison Building and the Millennium Tower is interesting because they both stand in San Francisco, CA, and were completed within 5 years of each other, but they were designed by different architects.

This offers a unique glimpse at how rival designers approached projects in the same city during the same era.

The Millennium Tower is clearly the larger tower of the two, both in terms of height and number of floors. It rises to 604ft (184m) with 58 floors above ground, while the The Harrison Building reaches 495ft (151m) with 49 floors above ground.

Of course, each project may have faced different briefs or regulatory constraints, which we don't really know about and could also explain the outcome.

Both the The Harrison Building and the Millennium Tower were designed in line with the aesthetic conventions of the Contemporary style.

At the time, this style was at the height of its popularity. So both Solomon Cordwell Buenz and Handel Architects followed what was in many ways expected of them, producing designs that fit comfortably within contemporary architectural norms, rather than breaking with convention.

Both the The Harrison Building and the Millennium Tower are primarily residential towers, serving similar roles in the urban fabric.

In terms of capacity, the The Harrison Building offers 298 apartments, while the Millennium Tower provides 419 units.

The Millennium Tower also provides 340 parking spaces.

Both the The Harrison Building and the Millennium Tower rely on a Frame structural system.

A frame structure uses a grid of columns and beams to carry the building's loads. This frees the walls from structural duties, allowing for flexible floor plans and larger windows.

They also employ the same type of facade, a Curtain Wall facade.

A curtain wall is a non-load-bearing facade hung from the structural frame. It is anchored to floor slabs and transfers only its own weight and wind loads, allowing for sleek, glassy exteriors.