SoMa Towers
Client
Undisclosed
Location
San Francisco, California
The project consisted of two high-rise towers which together total over 2.4M square feet of office space in the South of Market area. The design provided an environmentally responsible high-rise tower project in an urban contextual setting. The location is transit-friendly and supports a large south facing public plaza. The project’s two towers, linked by sky bridges, promote interaction between the tower tenants, improve overall elevator service and provide alternative emergency evacuation routes. The buildings were designed to have a smart-building envelope in which the facade system is fully integrated with the building's electrical, mechanical, heating and cooling systems. The roofs and the plaza are designed for rainwater retention which is collected and stored throughout the buildings providing gray water for irrigation and waste systems. At the roof levels, vertical axis wind turbines contributed to the buildings energy requirements. Also conceived were on-site cogeneration as an additional power source and a geothermal energy heat exchanger to offset cooling costs.