Aftershocks

Interestingly, an image of the 555 Washington Tower showed up on the front page of the Bay Area section of the Chronicle today (22 March 2010), with a quote from one of San Francisco's dissident planning commissioners to the effect that the building will be "a death trap for birds." The image reminded me again how derivative the tower is. In plan, though, it rises from a square shape before becoming conical - something that the drawings don't show very well. I wonder how it will actually look at street level. My opposition is not to the tower's design, however, but to its potential implications. Even if Renzo Piano were designing the building, at this scale it would put the same pressure on the district to the north. That district is essentially unprotected now, since everything is being decided case-by-case. Until that stops and there's a new plan that can guide the destiny of the area for another generation, it's "up for grabs," as John King noted.

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