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Comment by capkutay | Hacker News Reader

I just hate the design of salesforce tower. it's a recycled take at the architects same building in Hong Kong and Santiago[0,1]. Not sure why you would make such a landmark, dominant building look so unoriginal and unremarkable.

0: https://www.google.com/search?q=pelli+hong+kong&source=lnms&...

1: https://www.google.com/search?biw=1440&bih=762&tbm=isch&sa=1...

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As you may not be aware, the top 9 stories of the tower will be an LED art piece designed by Jim Cambell:

"The upper two-thirds of the [building] crown consists of perforated aluminum panels. [...] The exterior of the aluminum panels will be lit with 11,000 LED lights, which will display low-resolution moving color imagery. The images would be a combination of pre-recorded images and those taken from cameras surrounding the City. The crown of the tower also incorporates three internal lighting systems."

https://sf.curbed.com/2017/5/4/15551324/salesforce-tower-led...

I've been following the project closely (as you can see from my links dating back to 2007) so I am aware. I just think that was an after-thought to salvage some portion of the project.

I have a hard time believing they'd give up the top nine floors, just to salvage the project. I'm betting they used it to get the extra height (as part of a public space requirement) with the unspoken goal of reclaiming those floors in 10-20 year.

I think it looks very good by itself, since you don’t have other skyscrapers around. If they build a second one, they will have to get more creative.

Also I believe they have to conform to very strict earthquake standards.

I'm not sure what earthquake standards has to do with the aesthetic of the building. The main thing they need to do is drill 200 ft below surface into bedrock.

The competing design had a similar shape/weight distribution but was much more beautiful and unique:

https://i.ytimg.com/vi/zKV9lrNlb8M/maxresdefault.jpg

Beauty is in the eye of the beholder. The competing design reminds me of 1 world trade center, which I do not like.

  The main thing they need to do is drill 200 ft below surface into bedrock.

But will they? The builders of the Millennium Tower sure didn't.

Yes, they did. Salesforce Tower’s foundation is anchored into bedrock.

This is both easy to look up and not relevant to the conversation about design.

I agree it looks nice by itself, but the similarity to the building in Hong Kong also really bothers me way more than it should.

I'm neither an architect nor a designer, but my gut reaction is that you can only get so creative at 1,070′. Without any evidence to back this up, I'm going to say that physics will force most skyscraper designs to converge.

But yes, it's not particularly beautiful or original

If you look at the tallest buildings they all have unique designs.

http://www.hearandplay.com/main/wp-content/uploads/2015/12/t...

The competing design for transbay (salesforce) tower was much nicer but their group didn't win because they bid less money on the project. [0]

https://i.ytimg.com/vi/zKV9lrNlb8M/maxresdefault.jpg

0: http://www.socketsite.com/archives/2007/09/pelli_clarke_pell...

That looks so much better tbh.

I think the Burj Khalifa disagrees with you.

After capkutay's and anonfunction's comments, I disagree with me too, haha

Congratulations on being a reasonable human being.

I'm really unsure why this got down voted, I was genuinely glad to see someone change their opinion (however minor) when presented with facts that discredited it.

Maybe someone was upset at the use of "human being" because of a perceived connotation that people who behave irrationally thereby lose some of their humanity? (I'm sure you only meant "congratulations on being willing to change your opinion".)

Wow, guy is setting up franchises... San Francisco has its own McTech building now.

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