Architectural Digest: Studio Gang Completes a New Twisting Tower in San Francisco
The 400-foot skyscraper houses 392 luxury condos behind a stunning spiraling façade
Looking up toward the façade gives a real sense of how it appears to twist for those pedestrians in passing.
The booming San Francisco housing market continues to grow, particularly with new projects by such legendary architecture firms as Bjarke Ingels Group, MVRDV, and Arquitectonica. The latest new build to be completed, however, is Studio Gang’s Mira, a striking residential tower.
Rising 400 feet above the rapidly developing neighborhood between SoMa and the Embarcadero, Mira dazzles with a twisting curtain-wall façade—something of a technical masterpiece—that recalls Frank Gehry’s undulating 8 Spruce Street in New York. It comprises a modular system that repeats every 11 floors and borrows engineering techniques from the aerospace industry to create a completely smooth, all-white surface.
“Reinterpreting the classic bay windows of San Francisco, our design amplifies the dynamic quality of the neighborhood,” Jeanne Gang, founding principal of Studio Gang, said in a statement. “Spiraling all the way up this 400-foot tower, bay windows create unique spaces in every residence that offer fresh air, expansive views, and changing qualities of light throughout the day.”
A view of a model unit inside the building, showing the open floor layout and ample natural lighting.
The façade is also high-efficiency, helping to reduce the building’s overall energy consumption in conjunction with a graywater harvesting system, green roofs, and a VRF cooling system. With such measures in place, Mira is aiming for LEED Gold certification.
A view from the model unit shows the surrounding water and Bay Bridge.
Behind the dynamic façade are 392 luxury condos ranging from one- to three-bedrooms, 156 of which are being listed below market rate, plus amenities like rooftop lounges, a fitness center, and valet parking, as well as 10,000 square feet of retail space on street level.