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Facebook plans to invest $150 million to build 2,000 homes for low-income residents in the San Francisco Bay Area.
The Silicon Valley-based social media giant said Wednesday the money would support the development of affordable homes for families making less than 30 percent of the region’s median income.
— The Real Deal
According to The Real Deal, "the funds will be available to local governments and nonprofit groups in the form of low-interest loans. Projects in San Francisco, Santa Clara, San Mateo, Alameda, and Contra Costa counties are eligible. " The investment is due for full distribution by... View full entry
Google unveiled on Wednesday its most detailed vision yet for a transit-oriented neighborhood in downtown San Jose [...]
Google’s village would add 7.3 million square feet of offices, 4,000 homes, shops, restaurants, a hotel, 10 parks, cultural and entertainment hubs, and immersive and interactive educational elements near downtown San Jose’s Diridon train hub.
— Mercury News
Google's ambitious 80-acre, transit-oriented Downtown West plan first appeared on Archinect in October 2019 and involves a number of prominent architecture and urban design firms, including Kohn Pedersen Fox (related), Heatherwick Studio, Grimshaw Architects, SHoP Architects, Solomon Cordwell... View full entry
Just because prominent technology companies, including Twitter, Amazon, Apple, and others, have announced plans to extend work from home policies into 2022 and beyond, it doesn't mean they aren't planning for a return to the office somewhere down the line. A case in point is Google, which... View full entry
A development team that includes architects Steinberg Hart has topped out the first of two mixed-use residential towers in San Jose, California, part of a 630-unit development called MIRO that will rise as the city's tallest buildings. Designed for Bayview Development Group and... View full entry
Bay Area health officials issued a sweeping new order on Tuesday banning a range of commercial and residential construction that had previously been exempt from stay-at-home mandates. The move could swell the record number of Californians seeking unemployment by putting some construction workers out of jobs. — San Francisco Chronicle
After issuing a shelter-in-place order for six counties in the San Francisco Bay Area on March 16, health officials now increased the measure by also restricting construction activity on market-rate housing projects which was exempt until now. Related on Archinect: Not all construction projects... View full entry
[San Jose] became biggest city in the US to adopt all-electrification requirements on new residential buildings and gas bans on commercial construction.
By early next year, developers may have to opt for electric appliances and other infrastructure in single-family homes, backyard cottages, low-rise buildings, apartments and condos. [...] the changes could cut greenhouse gas emissions in new buildings by up to 90 percent and save owners and tenants money on utility bills.
— San Jose Inside
San Jose, California's third largest city, is implementing its Paris Accords-aligned Climate Smart San Jose plan as part of a municipally driven decarbonization effort. The plan relies on a series of "reach codes" to go above and beyond existing sustainability requirements. View full entry
The four-person California Renters Legal Advocacy and Education Fund, or CaRLA, has one reason for being — to sue cities that reject housing projects without a valid reason. The litigious nonprofit with YIMBY roots struck again last month, suing Los Altos after the city rejected a developer’s bid to streamline a project of 15 apartments plus ground-floor office space. — The Mercury News
CaRLA continues its aggressive efforts to get San Francisco Bay Area cities to stop denying by-right housing developments. “Something, by hook or by crook, has to make these cities actually build housing,” Sonja Trauss, co-executive director of CaRLA, told The... View full entry
This post is brought to you by the Urban Confluence Silicon Valley UPDATE: Urban Confluence Silicon Valley has extended the entry deadline to July 1, 2020.San José Light Tower Corporation invites visionaries, place-makers, architects, artists, designers, students, and dreamers to help... View full entry
The co-living startup Starcity plans to build an 800-unit, 18-story “dorm for adults” to help affordably house Silicon Valley’s booming workforce. Dishotsky, the co-founder/CEO of the co-housing start-up Starcity, is now working to fill America’s housing-strapped cities with a scaled-up version of his childhood idyll. — CityLab
Said to be the an 18-story "dorm for adults" the co-living startup Starcity aims to "redefining the meaning of home." The co-founder and CEO Jon Dishotsky is an advocate for co-living due to his upbringing in suburban Palo Alto. If asked about his upbringing, Dishotsky will share the story of... View full entry
He designed the Shard in London and the Centre Pompidou in Paris, but for his latest project, Italian architect Renzo Piano has taken his impressive legacy to the unsuspecting city of San Ramon in order to build a suburban shopping center. Completed for a reported cost of $300 million, City... View full entry
All of which makes for a nuanced tower, conscientious and self-assured even as it reorients the skyline and redefines San Francisco’s visual image. But there’s also an air of detachment, as if the creators were so busy being tasteful they forgot that big buildings can be fun.
In the works for a decade, and with plenty of work left to do, the 1.42 million-square-foot tower at First and Mission streets opened quietly Monday.
— San Francisco Chronicle
John King, the San Francisco Chronicle’s urban design critic, reviews Pelli Clarke Pelli's brand new Salesforce Tower which recently welcomed its first occupants. "And while it won’t ever gain visual swagger," King writes, "you might come to like it more than you expect." At 1,070 feet... View full entry
Fougeron Architecture, who recently completed the 400 Grove mixed-use in Hayes Valley, has left their mark again in the Bay Area in designing the new Kapor Center for Social Impact headquarters in downtown Oakland. The Kapor Center needed a new collaborative workspace to carry out their mission... View full entry
Facebook announced today that it has partnered with OMA to design the masterplan for Willow Campus, a mixed-use neighborhood adjacent to their existing headquarters in Menlo Park. "The first official step will be the filing of our plan with Menlo Park in July 2017. We will begin more formal... View full entry
Come July, the Pelli Clarke Pelli-designed Salesforce Tower in San Francisco is set to break two records: tallest building in the city and the most expensive. At 1,070-feet tall, the building cost its developer, Boston Properties, a whopping $1.1 billion. Actually, the Salesforce Tower isn’t... View full entry
Prompted by the success of a similar competition it ran in New York several years ago, The Rockefeller Foundation has launched a completely Ben-Carson-HUD-free contest that challenges architects and urban planners to "imagine climate change solutions" for the San Francisco Bay Area. Opening for... View full entry