SHoP Architects' Uber HQ Will Arrive in Approximately One Million Minutes

With the release of the first official renderings of Uber's planned Mission Bay headquarters, the countdown to its arrival has officially begun. The two-building complex, designed by New York's go-to megaproject architects SHoP, should be ready to receive the ride-sharing platform's small corporate army of 3,000 workers by the end of 2017 or early 2018, according to the San Francisco Chronicle. That works out to about 1.3 million minutes—an amount of time the Uber app does not currently support, we'd wager. Set on the 14-acre Mission Bay site once owned by Salesforce, the new 423,000-square-foot headquarters will consist of a six-story building at 1515 Third Street and an 11-story mid-rise at 1455 Third, near Pierpont Lane. Three glass and steel bridges will cross over the pedestrian lane at the heart of the project, which the architects conceived as a kind of glassy multistory commons. SHoP kindly shared a few exclusive images of the exterior, plus some shots of the building model.

Rendering: ©SHoP Architects PC
The idea of the glassed-in commons, which SHoP describes as a network of gathering and circulation spaces, is to reconcile the urban scale of two big buildings with the human scale an office interior demands, and give the inside of the building something of the city's energy. No interior renderings are available yet, but Studio O+A will be handling the interior design.

Of course, the new HQ—where the employees from Uber's smattering of Market Street leases will join forces—is slated for office types only. Uber drivers, by contrast, register and receive training at off-site "partner support centers," an awfully bleak-sounding name.

But there are some amenities for the little guy at street level: Along Third Street, SHoP is designing small-scale retail spaces on the building's ground floor. They'll also refurbish the small city park on Pierpont, where a new daycare center will be located.

· How SHoP Became NYC's Go-To Megaproject Architects [Curbed NY]
· Uber Will Set Up Its Headquarters in SF's Mission Bay [SFGate]
· Uber Sets Its Dropoff Location for, Yes, Uber-Hot Mission Bay [Curbed SF]