Fougeron Architecture is a nationally recognized design firm whose work exhibits a strong commitment to clarity of thought, design integrity, and quality.
500 folsom (transbay block 9)
San Francisco's Transbay District—redesigned as a vibrant, fully integrated, mixed-use and transit-oriented district—presents a model for high density development. 500 Folsom reinforces this vision with a 42-story mixed-use residential tower and nine-story podium.
The podium is conceived as three book-ends that rotate around the site, letting the tower reach to the ground, anchoring the site. At just 24-feet wide, the slender volumes establish a more residential identity at the street.
The tower anchors the project and is articulated as a series of “maisonettes” that echo the scale of podium and neighborhood’s industrial brick buildings, a history echoed in the red terracotta accents integrated into the architecture of volumes and voids of the podium.
The tower features a glass curtain wall with shading fins, which reduce solar heat gain and give the tower a sense of both transparency and opacity depending on viewing angles and time of day.
An outdoor, “urban living room,” activated by retail, and an open air “paseo” linking Folsom Street with the Underpass Park beyond extends the pedestrian realm in and through the site.
The residential amenities including community spaces that open out to green terraces reinforce the city’s vision for the district as a pedestrian-centered neighborhood