Tall and slender, hi-rises offer the opportunity to soar, literally “in the clouds.” They give an urban skyline its character, and in a sense, they form a cultural symbol of a city.
The design for this 1.3 million square-foot building takes the abstracted form of cumulus clouds as its symbolic reference. A reference to the natural world, to the fog and mists that permeate the city of San Francisco and the cloud computing technology that is fueling unprecedented global change.
The base is a study in humane scale. The long western street frontage is bisected by a forty-foot wide passage thru the building and is paired with an iconic lobby taking the form of a sixty-foot sphere emerging from the ground and making its way towards the sky.
As if clouds start in the lobby and rise to the sky, the middle of this 47-story tower is interrupted by two shapes, the first is a sphere protruding, and a bit further up is the reverse, a sixty-foot diameter void, with an aspirational viewing deck.
The building’s crown is expressed by a mysterious and tumultuous form, part technological wonder, part natural allusion. The top eight stories are a harmonic arrangement of thirty glass spheres, of varying diameters. Within this composition of soaring bubbles are vast sky gardens and public and private spaces.
In Cloudscape you find a spot to dream bigger dreams, acquire perspective…. ready to make a creative mark in the sky.