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Elihu Hernandez is running for Board of Supervisors in District 6 and he is having his campaign kick
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I love it, unabashedly.
I love it, too.
It's unusually clever and playful for a federal building, and the design makes me think of a building about 2 seconds after a Ryder truck has been detonated in front of it, making me wonder if the architect didn't play some cruel joke on his client that only a few of us can get.
It's not wrong to love it. Just in bad taste.
What a weird ass building. But it will be easy to tell people where the new federal building is... just look up for the most odd building in town.
i agree with cwiggum. it's wonderful.
I hella love it! It's like if Christian Bale as Batman designed a federal building. It's the Christian Bale Batmobile of buildings.
++ everyone. I love it too. Of course in 40 years when the rebar is rusting and the graffiti have been unsuccessfully sandblasted and then painted out hundreds of times, maybe not, but for now it's a winner.
Working for the agency that built it, I'm way too attached to it to have one type of feeling about it at this point. But I love people's opinions of it. I used to ride the 19 into work right by the job site and would hear some very charged opinions from people going to the methadone clinic right behind it in the morning.
Thom Mayne said in an interview about it something like, "I honestly don't care if people love it or hate it. The fact that they are thinking about green building is enough for me." If anyone has any questions about it, I can try to field them.
It's an architectural turd. It'll do for the Green building movement what the unspeakable Portland Building did for Postmodernist architecture - completely devastate it beyond all redemption.
Love it. In my top 10 sf buildings. The local planning dept would never have allowed it, but because it's federal it didn't have to answer to any local opposition
It's a nightmare to work in.
While there's no shame in getting spanked architecturally by Chicago and New York City, it's nice to see some ambition here in our little corner of the country. Seriously, if not for the Pyramid, SF's skyline would be indistinguishable from anyone else's.
I saw this thing going up and thought it was hideous. Now that I've seen the finished product I don't think it's all *that* bad, though I think it still says federal prison more than it does federal building.
Maybe if they threw some glitter on there and stuck giant multicolored pom-poms at the top it'd help make it look more festive. Probably not though. :/
i think it's cool. this picture makes it look a lot nicer than it does in person. it's a bit awkward in person is all.
i think it's cool. this picture makes it look a lot nicer than it does in person. it's a bit awkward in person is all.
Hey Generic,
Really?!? It's a Nightmare to work there? I read in SFGate a while back that some people hated working in that building. I've been inside it and I honestly don't see why it's so bad. My favorite gripe has to be the one about the elevators not stopping on every floor so that some people *boohoo sob sob* have to actually get some exercise and walk up ONE flight of stairs. And then there is all the whining about day light. Yes I can see how glare can be a temporary issue for computer screens. But to bitch and moan about having to work in a place that gets lots of natural light and fresh air?!? give me a break! let ME work there.
I'm a fan of this building. I don't see why there can't be more exciting buildings like this in San Francisco. This city LOVES to tout how progressive and forward thinking it is. But when it comes to architecture, San Francisco tends to be pretty boring and conservative.
It may come as a surprise but a lot of people actually have trouble with or simply cannot walk up one flight of stairs. And many others have, often due to prescribed medications and/or optical issues, have a sensitivity to light that can lead to permanent damage. So this isn't precisely in keeping with ADA and OSHA standards, let alone common sense.
Get back to me when it's finished being built. I never realized such piss poor architecture and design was possible until I saw that abomination.
It's not ironic, it's not attractive, it's not even function over form. It's plain ass ugly and misshapen. Do you also need to climb up a greased metallic slide to get into the building?
Why bother to get an education in architecture when all you need to do is toss up some crooked windows, ugly metal frame and load it full of "green" technology to get all the greenies moist in the panties? And now we can all pat one another on the back over quite possibly the worst building ever to be constructed in San Francisco. How wonderfully smug.
That South Park episode about San Franciscans appreciating the smell of their own farts never rang so true.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Smug_Alert
Yes yes. And that's why there IS an elevator in the federal building that stops at every floor.... for people who need it.
It should also come as no surprise that some people are just plain lazy. When I visited the federal building last spring, I overheard two seemingly able bodied people standing and waiting for the elevator that stops at every floor talking about how annoying they though the express elevators were. One told the other that even though she had to wait longer for the elevator that stops at every other floor, she would rather wait than have to, heaven forbid, get to her floor faster and climb up or down one flight of stairs to get there.
It's fine if those people want to be lazy. All I'm saying is I think it's ridiculous to call the elevators that skip floors "dysfunctional".
From an architectural standpoint, elevators that skip floors often are dysfunctional, from a poor execution standpoint, because they usually just end up confusing and frustrating the hell out of everyday building users. Though I admit I've never used those in this building so I can't rightly say.
Then again, on second thought, skipping floors may be just another in the bag of tricks to discourage would-be bombers or office shooters. Dunno for sure what the architect had, if anything, in mind. For all we know this guy could be the architectural equivalent of that one person in every office that is the resident MS Word sign-maker--all cute-sie-fied attempts to be clever but extraordinarily poor execution. Ultimately they just end up being highly annoying white noise.
What? Government employees complaining? No way, can't believe it.
Tear it down. Put unemployed workers to work recreating a building like the education bldg across from city hall. And make the architectural firm go to work picking lettuce.
isn't smog and constant traffic jams and hideous advertisements everywhere enough ugly?