Welcome to Year in Curbed, wherein we close out 2014 by asking local design, real estate, and media luminaries to reflect on the highlights and lowlights of a year's worth of development in San Francisco. The answers are in no particular order; all responses have been cut and pasted unabridged, below.
Q: What development caught your eye this year?
David Baker, principal at David Baker Architects: The new SFMOMA. It's showing the promise of the new technical tools in construction to make something organic. It just looks great.
Allison Arieff, editorial director at SPUR: The continued frenzied pace of the construction boom continues to amaze. But what many don't realize is that even with all this building, we're still nowhere near to building the amount of housing we need just for folks that are already here.
Brock Keeling, culture editor at 7x7 magazine: Tower Two at One Rincon Hill. It needed a second penis. Now it's a party.
Joel Goodrich, luxury real estate specialist at Coldwell Banker Previews International: 8 Octavia—with its facade of slim, vertical louvers which are electronically controlled from within the individual units, has been hailed by the New York Times for its "distinctive character," and is redefining the architectural character of Hayes Valley.
John King, urban design critic at the San Francisco Chronicle: Five large residential buildings at or near the corner of 10th and Mission? Unbelievable.
Cliff Kuang, articles editor at WIRED: This year, to me, was when it started to sink in that the Valley isn't the draw it once was. The tech giants, to keep their talent, have to rethink their relationship with San Francisco. People don't want to commute. They want to be part of a culture beyond a campus. So I hope that some of them start to act on that, because San Francisco deserves to be more than a bedroom community.
Anne Fougeron, principal at Fougeron Architecture: I am a big fan of all the changes in Downtown and the Transbay neighborhood. Feels to me like we are becoming a real city.
Marc L'Italien, principal at EHDD: The new Presidio Parkway. Phoebe Schenker in our office held back an official critique, but noted that 8 Octavia is certainly 'eye-catching.'
· Year in Curbed Archives [Curbed SF]