MVRDV Completes ‘The Canyon’ Tower in San Francisco

The Canyon, a 23-story mixed-use building designed by MVRDV, officially opened on June 21st in a ceremony attended by San Francisco Mayor London Breed, and the first residents are now moving in. The project was built as part of a master plan that transforms a windswept parking lot on San Francisco’s waterfront into a new sustainable neighborhood called Mission Rock. with housing for middle-income residents. With its rugged walls and a publicly accessible “canyon” that provides a path through the grounds, The Canyon evokes the dramatic geology of California, inspired in part by the charismatic topography of San Francisco. As MVRDV’s first completed project on the West Coast, The Canyon aims to introduce a blend of local sensibility and a cosmopolitan approach – in everything from the building’s public space to its mix of functions to the apartments it offers.

Located across from the Giants’ Oracle Park Stadium, The Canyon is one of four buildings forming the first phase of the new Mission Rock Neighborhood being developed through a partnership of the San Francisco Giants, Tishman Speyer and the Port of San Francisco. These buildings were designed through a collaborative process in which four internationally renowned design firms – Studio Gang, Henning Larsen and WorkAC, and MVRDV – worked simultaneously, creating designs that fit together seamlessly while each having a distinct look and feel.

Located in the northwest corner of the neighborhood, The Canyon is the first thing visitors see when crossing the 3rd Street Bridge and is soon overlooked by China Basin Park, a waterfront park and cultural hub for the community. The building consists of a five-storey base topped by a 73-meter tower in the west corner of the property. Like all buildings in the master plan, The Canyon’s ground floor is home to small shops and restaurants that will help create a sense of community in the new neighborhood.

In the case of The Canyon, the ground floor has two floors of offices, followed by 283 apartments. Over a third of these homes are rented at below-market rents, with residents selected through a lottery process, providing 102 homes to middle-income families and helping to alleviate San Francisco’s housing crisis.

The canyon is immediately recognizable thanks to its robustly textured reddish-brown facade. The design references California rock formations and features a landscaped public “canyon” that runs diagonally through the base of the building, connecting to offices and community facilities for residents. Offering a lush and vibrant space to relax and work, the Canyon also offers a shortcut from China Basin Park to the heart of the district. The walls of the gorge and the east side of the tower are jagged, with recesses and overhangs that give the impression of sheer cliffs. These have the added benefit of creating bay windows and small balconies for 40 apartments that offer views across the San Francisco Bay. The roofs of the plinth are also planted with plenty of greenery, creating common spaces where residents can relax, play sports or meet friends.

“With our design, we convey a sense of the topography in order to closely connect the building with its location,” says MVRDV founding partner Natalie de Vries. “Crucially, this approach also allowed us to contribute to a vibrant neighborhood: with the public canyon at its heart, The Canyon creates an activity-filled landscape where public space is connected to the shops, offices and homes surrounding Mission Rock to keep busy and keep alive. And thanks to the inclusion of below-market rental rates, it’s a neighborhood that will be accessible to the city’s nurses, teachers and other essential workers who keep the city running.”

An advantage of the simultaneous design process for the master plan is that the four buildings share critical energy and water infrastructure. For example, the building designed by Work AC houses a water recycling plant that treats black water from around the neighborhood for reuse. For its part, The Canyon houses the key mechanical elements of an efficient district heating system, hidden in parts of the ground floor and basement. Proximity to the San Francisco Bay gives the site the opportunity to use the bay water to both cool and heat Mission Rock via a water exchange system. The system results in a reduction in CO2 emissions, lower water and energy consumption and therefore lower bills for tenants. There is also a bicycle parking area in the basement, encouraging residents to use healthy and sustainable modes of transport. Taken together, these joint systems and actions enable the neighborhood to significantly reduce its carbon emissions and it will become one of the region’s exemplary projects.

The canyon and wider Mission Rock neighborhood are being developed in a partnership between the San Francisco Giants, Tishman Speyer and the Port of San Francisco. MVRDV worked with executive architect Perry Architects, landscape architect GLS Landscape/Architecture, PAE Engineers, civil engineer Magnusson Klemencic Associates and Swinerton Builders as contractors.

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Images and press release courtesy of ©MVRDV