San Francisco Federal Building
- Architect
- Thom Mayne
- Style
- Deconstructivism
- City
- San Francisco, CA
The Speaker Nancy Pelosi Federal Building is an 18-story, 234-foot tower at Mission and 7th streets in SoMa, designed by Thom Mayne of Morphosis as a supplement to the Phillip Burton Federal Building nearby. It was built as a working experiment in sustainable design, using less than half the energy of a standard office tower and becoming the first federal building certified under the USGBC's LEED program.
the building
The perforated skin. The building's southern face is wrapped in translucent panels of perforated stainless steel, each 3 by 8 feet, that absorb solar heat and drive an upward air current; that draft pulls in cooler air through sensor-controlled windows, producing a passive air-conditioning effect without mechanical cooling.
Materials and light. Mayne juxtaposed gray concrete walls, perforated metal panels, and custom, faceted wood ceilings, and oriented the building to bring natural light to 80 percent of its interior — the mechanism that made the low energy use possible.
the style
The building is an example of deconstructivism, using fractured, non-uniform massing and an intentionally raw juxtaposition of concrete, metal, and wood rather than a unified classical facade, treating the building's environmental systems as part of its visible architecture.
More on Deconstructivismthe architect
Thom Mayne, working through his firm Morphosis, designed the building as a deliberately experimental federal office tower, pushing the type toward passive environmental performance rather than a conventional glass-box federal building.
significance
The building was the first Federal Building to be certified under the U.S. Green Building Council's Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) criteria.
nearby
- San Francisco Proper Hotel
- James R. Browning United States Court of Appeals Building
- Orpheum Building
- Federal Office Building
- San Francisco Public Library
- The Old Main Library