Location:  San Francisco, California

Client:  MacFarlane Partners

1125 Market Street is being developed by MacFarlane Partners, and will be an important part of the revitalization of the city’s Mid-Market neighborhood as a vibrant residential and commercial district. The quarter-acre lot is atop underground-rail transit stations for BART and MUNI and across from United Nations Plaza and adjacent to the newly renovated landmark Strand Theater. The 12-story building will include 164 rental apartments with ground floor, street serving mixed-use spaces. The building covers the entire lot and has a 90 foot height at Market Street and a 25 foot setback at the upper floors.

The detailed composition, rhythms and scale of the project’s facades take their cues from Johnson Fain’s survey of historic buildings along Market Street in general and the adjacent Theatre and Loft District in particular. Following historic organizational principles, the tall base is accentuated with a painted street frame, giving each window module additional depth along the sidewalk. At the top of the mid-section of the Market Street facade, a strong cantilevered cornice is designed to capture the vertical wall below and create a modern version of the historic concept. Twenty-five feet back, a vertically composed glass wall consists of randomly alternating modules of three densities of glass and vertical mullions. Atop that and behind is the final wall, a randomized painted steel screen which provides privacy at the roof deck and visually terminates the building facade. In all respects, 1125 Market meets the massing and height requirements of this historic area and calls on historic design elements as the basis for creating a compatible yet contemporary work of architecture.