Brandon Donnelly

Daily insights for city builders, delivered every morning at 6 AM ET. I’m Brandon Donnelly — a Toronto-based real estate developer and founder of Globizen. I’ve been writing here since 2013.

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Tishman Speyer, the San Francisco Giants, and MVRDV have just completed a new residential building in San Francisco called “The Canyon.”

The first phase of the larger Mission Rock masterplan (which also includes a project by Studio Gang), the complex got its name because of a walkway that cuts through the plinth of the building and that, well, looks like a canyon. You can see it in the above image if you look closely. There are even stairs that take you up as you walk through it.

But what is most interesting about this walkway is not its geological reference. It would be how it performs at the ground floor and for the homes that face into it. It’s a way of creating a narrow mid-block connection (and we like narrow streets), while at the same time allowing more light into the center of the block.

So I’d be curious to see/experience what it’s like in the middle of this canyon. Hopefully it’s interesting.

Photo: Jason O’Rear

June 28, 2023

canyon walkway, mission rock, MVRDV, residential development, san francisco, the canyon, tishman speyer, walkway

One response to “A canyon as mid-block connection”

doug pollard

June 29, 2023

It is interesting that the word canyon was not seen as one that would discourage sales. Also I have to assume that all those quite knowledgeable designers made sure that the path would not accelerate any wind coming off the bay and become a wind tunnel. At grade, it reminds me somewhat of Masdar where they did use narrow streets and specific curvilinear facades to cool that desert location by encouraging desert breezes that way. And finally, this is sort of tucked away behind the dialogue about form and is possibly the most important aspect of the whole project :

One benefit of the simultaneous design process for the master plan is that the four buildings share critical energy and water infrastructure. Based in the building designed by Work AC, for example, is a water recycling plant that will process black water from the whole neighborhood for reuse. For its part, The Canyon hosts the key mechanical elements of an efficient district heating system, hidden away in parts of the ground floor and basement. The proximity to the San Francisco Bay provides the site with the opportunity to utilize bay water for both cooling and heating of Mission Rock via a water exchange system. The system leads to a reduction of CO2 and lower water and energy usage a

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A canyon as mid-block connection

One response to “A canyon as mid-block connection”

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