The Registry | Q2 2014

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2: 2014 A PUBLICATION BY

APRIL | MAY | JUNE | 2014

COMMERCIAL & RESIDENTIAL REAL ESTATE

AREA NEW THE DESIGN ISSUE 2014

RE-

DESIGN OAKLAND’S PUTTING A LITTLE MORE THERE THERE | PG. 8 TRANSBAY: A NEW NEIGHBORHOOD EMERGES | PG. 16

VOLUME 3, NUMBER 2

PREVIEW: A CORPORATE CAMPUS LIKE YOU’VE NEVER SEEN BEFORE | PG. 20 DOWNTOWN SAN JOSE GETS GROOVY | PG. 38

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Our purpose is simple. We build to improve lives.

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inside...

ON THE COVER: Light and life return to the atrium of 888 Brannan St. in San Francisco.

AREA DESIGN OAKLAND 8

JOE FLETCHER

Putting More There There Oakland’s central city gains traction in retail and residential projects

TRANSBAY 16

Transbayformation New transit hub is also a catalyst for a neighborhood redesign

SILICON VALLEY CAMPUS 20

The New Anatomy of a Tech Campus

His 1970s office park needed more than an update, so Scott Jacobs started from scratch

HEALTHCARE 23

The Doctor Will See You Now New design concepts enter the healthcare space, transforming the experience from within

CONTINUED

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WHAT’S Total Market Value of Firm YOUR Q? Q RATIO = Total Asset Value

inside...

RE-DESIGN 888 BRANNAN 48

Let The Sunshine In 888 Brannan gets a new look that also preserves its history

NEW DESIGN COMCAST 30

Comcast’s Wild West Office The cable and media giant expands its Sunnyvale center and prepares for the next chapter of innovation

INDIO DRIVE 54

Phoenix Rising

As a template of sustainable achievement, an R&D building in Sunnyvale gets a new life

BARKERBLUE 61

Death of the Blueprint

WORD ON THE STREET 37

BarkerBlue transforms its business to coordinate an expanding digital universe of construction documentation

Industry insiders highlight creative and functional design features

FINAL OFFER 64

What example of great design comes to mind?

LPA 38

Downtown San Jose’s Living Lab

Twenty-Five and Counting Brooks Walker and Greg Warner look back on a quarter-century in business

LPA’s newest office puts the architecture firm’s culture on display

APIGEE 40

For Apigee, San Jose Showed the Way Palo Alto tech company makes the move south to downtown San Jose

OPTIMIZELY 42

Optimizely Blasting Off The company’s sci-fi aesthetic creates a vision of its own future

read more online: news.theregistrysf.com SOARING SAN FRANCISCO ‘SKYLINE’ RENTS STILL DRAW INVESTORS, TENANTS SOUTH BAY’S MULTIFAMILY DEVELOPMENT SEGMENT RIDES A ‘PERFECT STORM’ PROPOSED WATERFRONT BALLPARK SEEN AS CROWN JEWEL OF OAKLAND REVIVAL

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letter from

THE PUBLISHER

“Design is a funny word. Some people think design means how it looks. But of course, if you dig deeper, it’s really how it works.”

STEVE JOBS, AS INTERVIEWED BY WIRED MAGAZINE IN 1996 In the annals of Bay Area commercial real estate development, 2014 will most likely be an exemplary year. The Bay Area could not be a more active place than it is today, and the level of activity is widespread across the entire region. Throughout this process we are witnessing great changes. Old buildings are reconstructed and repurposed for a nascent industry. New construction and development is redefining the anatomy of a corporate campus. Neighborhoods are literally rising out of the ground, reconfiguring our way of life in every aspect.

We are at the dawning of a new industrial revolution.

Our railroads are optical wires connecting data centers; our factories are creative offices where engineers develop apps and dream of ways to connect our world ever more. And everything we do happens by design.

Vladimir Bosanac (415) 738-6434 vb@theregistrysf.com

PRESIDENT

Heather Bosanac (415) 738-6434 heather@theregistrysf.com

EDITOR

Robert Celaschi

DESIGN

Laura Myers Design

PHOTOGRAPHER Laura Kudritzki

ADVERTISING

Scott Jacobs and Kevin Bates are two developers who see that future clearly. They are approaching development in distinct ways—the former by redeveloping land of his father from decades ago (The New Anatomy of a Tech Campus, page 20), the latter by repositioning an old and abundant product of Silicon Valley into a net-zero structure with an innovative approach to leasing (Phoenix Rising, page 54). They may be designing two very different structures, but the end result is closely related. A healthy, self-sustaining and amenities-rich living building that talks to us through the very technology designed in our region.

SUBSCRIPTIONS

And its arrival could not have been designed more perfectly. The city has since become a very important part of Silicon Valley. Venture capital firms and the companies in which they invest are firmly committed to San Francisco as much as they are to Silicon Valley proper. The energy of the region can be felt along the north-south corridor that connects the city to the valley, and it’s starting to spread eastward. Oakland, the venerable industrial city across the San Francisco Bay has not had an equally fortuitous economic resurgence.

But that is starting to change. Driven out by very high cost of living in San Francisco, people are starting to consider Oakland a viable alternative to the urban atmosphere San Francisco has to offer. The there there is finally arriving—as if by design.

Thank you for reading.

Vladimir Bosanac

Q

PUBLISHER

This is precisely the reason many of the old-economy companies have their outposts in the Bay Area. Companies like Western Union, Nissan, General Electric and the like understand the importance this geography plays in the strategic evolution of their businesses. So does Comcast, which is featured on page 30.

The company has offices in Philadelphia, Atlanta, Detroit, Denver and Manchester, New Hampshire, but its renegade office in Sunnyvale is designed to be the one that will determine the company’s future.

Yet, the biggest impact of this transformation will be felt in our cities. Designed for a society focused on cars, our cities prided themselves on their intricate web of intercrossed highways.

At some point, a vision emerged to develop an intermodal transportation system to support that car-enabled lifestyle, but it wasn’t until San Francisco made its historic decision to invest in a grand Transbay station that civic leaders, developers and city planners decided that a new neighborhood focused around public transportation should emerge at the 1st and Mission Streets (Transbayformation, page 16).

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Denise Franklin (408) 366-1984 denise@theregistrysf.com

NEWS

news@theregistrysf.com

FEEDBACK

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ETHICS POLICY

The Registry embraces a strict ethics policy for its staff and contributing writers, including columnists and freelance reporters. No person employed by or affiliated with The Registry has accepted or will accept any compensation, monetary or otherwise, in exchange for editorial content. All information that appears in the magazine is selected solely for its informational value to readers.

The Registry is a registered trademark of Mighty Dot Media, Inc. ©2014 Mighty Dot Media, Inc. All rights reserved.

This publication and/or its contents may not be copied, reproduced or republished in whole or in part without the written consent of Mighty Dot Media, Inc.

change the industry change the world ONE PROJECT AT A TIME $780,000 average value of small to mid-size projects in 2013

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Redwood City

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San Jose

20 YEARS

LINKS FOR LIFE SILICON VALLEY

AREA DESIGN OAKLAND 8 | TRANSBAY 16 | SV CAMPUS 20 | HEALTHCARE 23

With his Central & Wolfe project in Sunnyvale, Scott Jacobs is pursuing all the sought-after design amenities that large tech companies are pursuing. (See story on page 20.)

STEELBLUE, LLC

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Oakland

Some of the most dramatic changes have occurred near the historic Fox movie theater in uptown Oakland.

LAURA KUDRITZKI

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PUTTING MORE THERE

O Oakland’s central city gains traction in retail and residential projects

JOE GOSE

AKLAND’S growing reputation as a hip and affordable alternative to San Francisco is fueling waterfront and downtown development, furthering a resurgence that began taking hold a few years ago.

From Ellis Partners’ $400 million Jack London Square mixed-use redevelopment on the Oakland Estuary, to Signature Development’s $50 million renovation of six 90-year-old industrial buildings into a mixed-use project known as The Hive in uptown, the urban environment now provides a younger crowd with more reasons to live and work in central Oakland, say boosters.

“We really have all the components that are appealing to the young urbanite today,” said Deborah Boyer, a senior vice president with The Swig Co. and president of the Lake Merritt-Uptown Association community benefit district. “And the housing situation in San Francisco is so untenable that we are just getting more and more attention.”

The most dramatic changes have occurred uptown around 17th Street and Telegraph Avenue near the historic Fox Theater, said John Dolby, a senior vice president with brokerage Cassidy Turley in Oakland. For workers like him at City Center, it’s a short walk.

“This whole area is changing; there’s more bars, more restaurants and more nightlife—and there’s more coming online,” he said. “There are people restoring older buildings and their façades.

So there has been a big transformation.”

Nearly 120 new businesses opened between the beginning of 2009 and June 2013, with more than half of those arriving over the 12-month period ended last June, according to the Lake MerrittUptown Association.

Room for improvement still exists, however. Some observers are concerned that more retail shops are needed to balance the onslaught of bars and restaurants. But cafes and bars tend to arrive in revitalizing areas first and retailers follow, Boyer said, and that is playing out in both downtown and uptown Oakland, too. In 2013, for example, 16 retailers opened, up from five in 2011. Still, she would like to see more retailers, noting that empty or underused storefronts continue to dot Broadway.

Among other efforts, the districts have partnered with Oakland Grown, a promoter of local independent businesses, to develop “shop local” campaigns, she said. Additionally, business incubator PopUpHood has helped to establish five permanent stores in the area. The concept provides small businesses free rent for six months.

“That has been really helpful in allowing businesses to get on their feet,” Boyer said. “We’d like to see more of it.”

Jack London Square also is facing retail challenges even though office space is leased well enough that some restaurants are succeeding. So far, chef Daniel Patterson’s 3,500-square-foot Haven restaurant is the sole tenant of the 62,000-square-foot Jack London Market building developed several years ago to cater to entrepreneurial food operations and shops.

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Oakland

James Ellis, managing partner of Ellis Partners, suggests that the tough lending environment coming out of the recession hamstrung the types of businesses that would occupy the Market. Filling the space remains a priority, he said, and Oakland’s improving economy coupled with pro-business political leadership is providing a good foundation. But Ellis refuses to rush the Market.

“We’re not willing to compromise our vision,” he said. “We want it done with the right mix of tenants, and we won’t open it until we have a critical mass of tenants.

Part of the retail challenges in Oakland center on the struggle to generate daytime foot traffic.

Although workers coming out of the City Center BART Station can catch the Broadway B shuttle for the roughly 10-block trip to Jack London Square, the large office users get more reluctant to consider buildings as they get farther from a BART stop, Dolby said.

Still, plans to add offices and residences throughout the area could help create more tenant traffic.

Ellis Partners is seeking city approval to build a tower with some 537 residential units in Jack London Square. MBH Architects is on the consulting team, but Ellis has yet to select engineers or contractors. Ellis also is working up plans to convert the Pavilion building—formerly a Barnes & Noble—into a beer garden, restaurant and other entertainment uses, he added.

The Hive will include 104 apartments and 100,000 square feet of incubator space, offices and retail.

Signature Development has added Hub Oakland, Numi Organic Tea, Balfour Beatty Construction and others to the tenant roster.

Signature hired Flynn Architecture to design it as part of a team that includes Proforma Construction, BKF Engineering and furniture supplier Herman Miller.

San Francisco-based Strada Investment Group has entered into

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“The housing situation in San Francisco is so untenable that we are just getting more and more attention.”

DEBORAH BOYER, SENIOR VICE PRESIDENT, THE SWIG CO.

Cafés and bars tend to arrive in revitalizing areas first and retailers follow, according to Deborah Boyer, above — photographed at Two Jacks Denim with owner Tommy Mierzwinski. Now a push is on to bring in more retailers.

LAURA KUDRITZKI

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Oakland

a negotiating agreement with the city to develop city-owned parcels near City Center for a potential mixed-use project that could include residential units. Similarly, The Swig Co. has an entitlement to redevelop the Kaiser Center’s mall into a high-density development that could include a large residential component, Boyer said.

The firm has no immediate plans to start the project.

Developers and city officials also are trying to create more inviting spaces. The Downtown Oakland Association and Lake Merritt benefit districts, which are jointly operated, launched a beautification program that restored landscaping and irrigation to medians and added planters along sidewalks, among other efforts, when they formed in 2009.

The groups are also working with the city on the renovation of Latham Square, a pedestrian plaza at the foot of the Uptown district where Telegraph Avenue and Broadway meet. Latham Square will grow by four times its size to 9,500 square feet later this year and will hold events and provide space for popup retailers.

“We knew it was an asset— there are very few places where you can plop down furniture and carve out little nodes and create a fun space for people,” said Andrew Jones, district services manager for the downtown association.

“It’s a very valuable space that has the ability to bring out people and hold events.”

In Jack London Square, Ellis Partners has broken up vast concrete spaces to create more intimate gathering places and foster continuity. It has added palm trees, lawns, outdoor patios, fountains, furniture and artwork.

It also eliminated a surface parking near the waterfront.

“Visitors were faced with going into these big open areas with nothing there,” Ellis said, “and those types of environments, especially from a retailing mindset, don’t work.”

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Oakland

GRAB A BITE Old Oakland hasn’t vanished, but a new Oakland is drawing crowds.

LAURA KUDRITZKI

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Transbay

The new Transbay Tower will be the crown jewel in a 40-acre transformation of the neighborhood.

LAURA KUDRITZKI

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TRANSBAYFORMATION DAVID GOLL

New transit hub is also a catalyst for a neighborhood redesign

WHAT COULD BECOME “one of the great

urban neighborhoods in America” is starting to take shape on the southern edge of downtown San Francisco.

More than a quarter-century in the making through a combination of public and private financing, the city’s Transbay Redevelopment Plan will transform the nearly 40 acres in San Francisco’s SoMA district south of Mission Street by bringing more than 4,400 housing units, 11 acres of new public parks and nearly 1,000 hotel rooms—along with 100,000 square feet of retail and six million square feet of office space. The crown jewel of the redeveloped area, the 1,070-foot Transbay Tower, should open by 2018. The city’s

tallest building, it will sit adjacent to the redeveloped Transbay Transit Center for a combined cost of $4.5 billion. The latter has been designed as a regional transportation hub already dubbed the “Grand Central Station of the West.” “[Transbay] gives us the unique opportunity to create one of the great urban neighborhoods in America,” said Gabriel Metcalf, executive director of SPUR, a San Francisco-based nonprofit that advises government officials on planning and development issues. Metcalf said SPUR got involved in early discussions in the 1980s about redeveloping the 1939 vintage Transbay Terminal, the city’s original transit hub on Howard Street, and its surrounding neighborhood.

Initially, the plan aimed to channel downtown growth southward from San Francisco’s financial district. Metcalf said residents and city officials wanted the city’s biggest high-rises to go into one area instead of spreading into densely built but historical neighborhoods and tourist destinations such as Chinatown.

Redevelopment of the South-of-Market area grew to encompass replacement of the aging Transbay Terminal to accommodate the region’s growing public transit web—including BART, Caltrain, Muni, AC Transit, SamTrans and, some day, possibly the state’s high-speed rail trains.

But the project also has become a way to make downtown more of a place to live and play, as well as work. A mix of rental apartments and for-sale condos and townhouses will bring up to 10,000 new residents to the downtown core, according to Mike Grisso, senior project manager for San Francisco’s Office of Community Investment and Infrastructure, successor to the city’s defunct Redevelopment Agency. Grisso has worked on the Transbay project for 11 years.

“In creating a plan for this neighborhood, we focused on livability, creating parks and open spaces, retail on Folsom Street and ground-level townhouses in places,” Grisso said. State officials have mandated that 35 percent of all the project housing must be affordable.

Some projects, like the Rene Cazenave Apartments, are 100 percent affordable, while other housing projects are fully market-rate developments.

In San Francisco, housing is considered “affordable” when low- and middle-

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Transbay

“When completed, it will be the densest neighborhood in San Francisco, but also the most livable.”

MIKE GRISSO, SAN FRANCISCO’S OFFICE OF COMMUNITY INVESTMENT AND INFRASTRUCTURE

LAURA KUDRITZKI

income residents are paying no more than 30 percent of their income for rent. The U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development pegs San Francisco’s area median annual income for 2014 at $62,050 for one person to $88,600 for a family of four. For most of the affordable housing units, tenants would pay monthly rent of $850 for a studio to $1,214 per month for three bedrooms.

“When completed, it will be the densest neighborhood in San Francisco, but also the most livable. It’s close to amenities, jobs and transit,” Grisso said.

Folsom Street offers one of the strongest examples of the redeveloped neighborhood’s appeal, according to Grisso. He said it will be transformed from a busy one-way street with narrow

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pedestrian walkways into a two-way “boulevard” with 25-foot-wide sidewalks lined with outdoor cafes and restaurants, as well as service-oriented retailers in spaces no larger than 5,000 square feet. Mid-block walkways across Folsom would give greater priority to pedestrians in a city not often hospitable—or even safe—for walkers.

New landscaping, lighting, seating, bike lanes and other amenities will make Folsom and neighboring thoroughfares more inviting for both residents and office workers, he added.

High-rise buildings will mix with low-rise formats, with ground-level townhouses on some blocks adding a residential, round-the-clock population ambiance to the district. Redeveloped Folsom Boulevard, running through

the heart of the new residential area, is expected to be a gathering spot for both the new Transbay and nearby existing Rincon Hill housing areas.

The plan calls for Main, Spear and Beale streets to be redesigned as pedestrianoriented corridors linking residential blocks and the new office development and Financial District. Sidewalks would be widened and lined with trees, seating areas and small open spaces.

“Today, San Francisco has some very rough streets,” Grisso said. “Cities like Chicago and Vancouver have done a much better job of creating nice sidewalks and public spaces. We have to pay more attention to the public realm to make for an inviting pedestrian environment.

Because most people will arrive in this part

of the city through the Transbay transit center, they will all start out as pedestrians. We want to make sure as many as possible remain pedestrians during their time in this neighborhood.”

Office building development, generating up to 27,000 jobs, will cluster in the northern portion of the redevelopment area closest to the Financial District.

Much of the southern portion of the district, centering on Folsom, focuses on residential and retail projects.

Beyond promoting ground-level townhouse-style housing and mandating strict controls on the slenderness of office towers to permit greater visibilities and sunlight, city officials are allowing wide design latitude to developers, Grisso said.

They are hoping to generate an eclectic yet complementary look to the neighborhood.

Streetscape construction along Folsom should start early next year and be completed by early 2016, Grisso said.

Improvements along other nearby streets start along with private construction of each block. The creation of open space under the new bus ramps of the Transbay transit center should be open by 2018.

James Chung, managing director and principal of Terranomics Retail Services, concurs with Grisso that most of new retail attracted to the redeveloped Transbay district will be restaurants and services such as bakeries, coffee shops, boutiques, dry cleaners, bookstores and similar tenants. Adding a larger residential component will help attract small retailers, but success is not a slam dunk, he said.

Just a few blocks away, the King Street commercial thoroughfare in the 303-acre Mission Bay redevelopment area has had mixed success attracting retailers.

“King Street has not done exceptionally well, though it is getting better,” Chung said. Retail and housing redevelopment

along that corridor began with the opening of AT&T Park in 2000 and phased development of the massive new Mission Bay residential, office, life science/biotech space in the ensuing decade.

“There’s lots of activity in that area, with the ballpark, employers, restaurants, a Safeway and the Lucky Strike bowling alley,” Chung said. “But it’s just not quite there yet.”

Chung said asking monthly retail rates along King Street are in the range of $4 to $5 per square foot. Several blocks away in the upscale Union Square shopping district anchored by Macy’s, Neiman Marcus and Saks Fifth Avenue, asking monthly rental rates can be as high as $42 per square foot per month.

The retail picture on both King Street and the future Folsom Boulevard should benefit from the influx of new residents to the Transbay neighborhood. Grisso said the various types of housing will create a diversified residential district.

Families likely will make up the bulk of those moving into the affordable rental units, while the market-rate housing will most likely appeal to more affluent young professionals and empty-nesters from the suburbs, he said.

One of the first residential developments to be completed is already ensuring that the neighborhood won’t be exclusively upscale. The Rene Cazenave Apartments are geared to people who were formerly homeless. Named in honor of a late community activist and founding member of San Francisco’s Community Housing Partnership, the eight-story structure at 530 Folsom St. has 120 studio and one-bedroom units, 12 of which are handicapped accessible. Residents, referred by the city’s Department of Public Health, are also eligible to receive counseling and medical services, Grisso said.

BOSTON PROPERTIES

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Silicon Valley Campus

THE NEW ANATOMY OF A TECH CAMPUS NANCY AMDUR WHEN SCOTT JACOBS THOUGHT ABOUT

updating a Sunnyvale office park his father built in the 1970s, he realized the best option was to start from scratch with a modern, amenities-rich campus not too dissimilar from what Silicon Valley’s most innovative technology companies are pursuing.

“My father said, ‘I never thought I’d be tearing down these buildings in my lifetime,’” said Jacobs, CEO of Menlo Park-based Landbank Investments LLC. “At the time they were built, they felt cutting-edge.”

But tech firms in Silicon Valley are making it clear that they have new needs, as companies such as Apple, Google and Facebook work on office expansions highlighted by large floor plates, extensive outdoor space and abundant amenities, all meant to encourage creativity and collaboration.

Landbank, owned by the third generation of the Jacobs family, joined forces with global architecture firm HOK and Oakland-based green engineering firm The Integral Group to outline Central & Wolfe, a 770,000-square-foot office campus set on 18 acres.

The design calls for three connected, curvaceous, four-story buildings, which will replace Landbank’s nine boxy, onestory structures at 222 North Wolfe Road.

Each floor is a contiguous concrete slab.

So while the typical floor plates measure 62,000 square feet, walls could be knocked out to join a total of 208,000 square feet—a key ingredient for tech companies looking for large floor plates that encourages employee interaction.

Catering to the tech industry made sense because “Sunnyvale is a leader in innovation and technology,” Jacobs said.

Central & Wolfe, slated for occupancy in March 2016, is designed to have one to three tenants, and it aims for a LEED Platinum rating. In its present design iteration, it will use mostly reclaimed water and generate on-site solar power. The building will be net-zero ready, meaning it

is set up to easily add enough photovoltaic or solar thermal elements that it would not need energy off the utility grid.

“Forward-thinking people are looking ahead to be ready with net-zero energy from day one,” said Paul Woolford, design director at HOK in San Francisco.

A person inside the building will never be more than 45 feet from a window.

Outside, plans call for a central quad, sports courts and fields, and more than two miles of walking and bike paths; a 300- to 500-seat sunken amphitheater surrounded by mature redwood trees; and a 90,000-square-foot rooftop garden.

Courtyards will feature fruit trees as a nod toward the valley’s agricultural past.

His 1970s office park needed more than an update, so Scott Jacobs started from scratch Everyone in the building will be within a 2.5-minute walk from the center of the quad. A separate amenities building will have space for services such as a fitness center, a café, a dry cleaner or a hair salon.

These features help “create community and a sense of place and identity,” Woolford said.

“In the most successful [office] projects, people have a variety of spaces to interact,” added David Lehrer, a spokesman at University of California, Berkeley’s Center for the Built Environment, a research group focused on improving the design, operation and environmental quality of buildings.

Amenities can boost employee satisfaction, lessen their time in cars and allow them to “balance personal responsibilities with work,” Lehrer said.

Also convenient is public transportation. Central & Wolfe sits 1.4 miles from downtown Sunnyvale and two Caltrain stations. Plans also include a depot for possible shuttle service.

Locating near transportation and encouraging or providing commuting options, such as carpools or a shuttle, should be part of all new office plans, industry experts said.

“The additional trips that happen in a workday are part of the sustainability story,” said Egon Terplan, regional planning director at the urban planning group SPUR in San Francisco.

“You can make a building really green, but if everyone’s driving in their car to get there, you’re not doing everything you can,” Lehrer said.

Designing a building this way is more costly than most office projects (with final costs still being determined), but Landbank wants each design element to “raise the user experience bar,” Jacobs said.

Most of the increased expense comes from LEED platinum requirements and eliminating surface parking—in favor of more convenient, under-building podium parking and a standalone garage, Jacobs said.

All of these features and amenities can help companies attract the best and brightest talent, he added.

“You can say to current and prospective employees, ‘Come and look at our culture.

Look at how enjoyable a workplace this is.

We have innovative projects and services, and the process is enjoyable,’” Jacobs said.

“It’s designed around how the new workplace wants to organize itself,” Woolford said.

Landbank, which has a nearly 50-year history working with office and R&D projects in the region, plans to stick to this strategy of building for tenants’ needs.

“For developers to remain relevant and attractive to leading-edge tech companies, they will be better served by looking at what users want,” Jacobs said.

“Forward-thinking people are looking ahead to be ready with net-zero energy from day one.”

PAUL WOOLFORD, HOK

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No point within Central & Wolfe will be more than 45 feet from curving glass exterior. The site plan calls for a grove of trees at the center, and rooftop gardens.

At bottom, some of the many tech companies that are near the development.

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Healthcare

ERIC RORER

THE DOCTOR WILL SEE YOU NOW HAYDEN DINGMAN HEALTHCARE, with its tight regulations and long traditions, is not exactly the industry to drive a design revolution. Most people describe a doctor’s office this way: ratty chairs, scuffed linoleum or carpet that’s lived through one too many decades, greenish fluorescent lights, puce walls.

Clinical. Impersonal. Uncomfortable.

But the Bay Area is playing host to change. One Medical Group wants you to associate different words with going to the doctor. “Relaxed.” “Stress-free.” “Inviting.”

READ ON

New design concepts enter the healthcare space, transforming the experience from within

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Healthcare

“We’re reinventing primary care by looking at how we can improve every aspect of the experience.”

SARAH ISRAEL, VICE PRESIDENT OF MARKETING AT ONE MEDICAL GROUP

One Medical designs each office to be an extension of its neighborhood.

DANA HOFF, ERIC RORER

“We’re reinventing primary care by looking at how we can improve every aspect of the experience,” said Sarah Israel, vice president of marketing at One Medical Group. “Ultimately we really want people to like going to the doctor.”

That goal relies on a competent and friendly staff, but it starts with the design of One Medical’s offices in San Francisco, New York, Boston and Los Angeles .

“When we thought about how our offices should be designed, we put the people first and said, ‘What experience would they want?’” said Israel. “We want to be very welcoming and comfortable and to feel like a unique experience, so each one of our offices is different. We want it to feel customized and fit with the neighborhood it’s in.”

Take One Medical’s clinic at 2410 California, for instance. Near the inter-section of California and Fillmore streets, the Pacific Heights office is

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located in a retail-heavy area with a lot of pedestrian traffic.

“We wanted to give that welcoming sense of indoor/outdoor, having the pedestrian community outside feel like they could access the space,” said Michelle Granelli, senior design director at interior design firm Urban Chalet.

As such, the clinic was designed so the front half of the waiting room has the same concrete finish as the exterior sidewalk. It looks, for all intents and purposes, like there really is no division between inside and outside, making it natural for you to walk in and sit down.

This feeling is aided by floor-to-ceiling windows, which keep with the retail theme of the California and Fillmore location but also follow One Medical’s guidelines: The company considers natural light essential to putting patients at ease.

And as for the decor, it would be easy to mistake 2410 California for a high-end

furniture boutique. It has the look of a just-a-bit-too-perfect living room display in a department store. In fact, one person tried to buy a couch from the office thinking it was a showroom.

The Hayes Valley location at 98 Gough Street, on the other hand, is warm, with more emphasis on wood and local art. In SoMa, dark greys and browns contrast with bright red furniture. In the Castro, the space is dominated by a bright chartreuse wall and corresponding furniture.

“Patients really respond well to our offices,” said Israel. “We see people Tweet photos or post them on Facebook and Instagram.”

It’s not just patient-forward areas getting a facelift. “We carry the design scheme all the way through to the back office space. We want to make sure that staff, providers and administrators feel like they’re working in an innovative and comfortable environment,” said Granelli.

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Healthcare

A similar approach has produced a nontraditional look at Rock Health, an incubator for healthcare-focused tech companies. As Rock Health’s Web site puts it, “Healthcare represents nearly 18 percent of the U.S. economy, yet it is one of the last sectors to undergo technologybased transformation.”

You’d never guess Rock Health’s incubator is involved in healthcare from looking at its new Mission Bay office. It looks like a tech start-up.

The space is long and narrow.

“The city wanted it to be a restaurant or some sort of retail,” said Jason Pignolet, project architect at Studios Architecture, the firm that handled the interiors. “We were able to convince them that since the office has a public function it was a good fit for the area.”

That means open. Rock Health’s first floor office is more window than wall, with three faces exposed to the public with floor-to-ceiling glass. “They want to have a public face, so people can walk down the street and say, ‘Oh, this is Rock Health,’” said Pignolet.

A series of raw wooden ribs run the length of the ceiling, one every few feet. They’re decorative, framing the space and contrasting with the concrete floors and polished marble tabletops, but also function as attach points for lighting fixtures and a sunshade.

“One of my favorite design elements in the new space is the LED lighting along the top of the street-side windows,” said Amanda Cashin, Ph.D., who serves as senior vice president of Life Science at Alexandria Real Estate, which partnered with Rock Health on the project.

“When cars pass along Third Street at night, they’re drawn in by the colorful lighting and can capture a glimpse into the collaborative digital health innovations occurring inside.”

But by far the biggest feature of Rock Health’s office is its ability to adapt to the company’s needs.

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Rock Health’s office at 455 Mission Bay Blvd. S. in San Francisco; owned by Alexandria Real Estate Equities.

General contractor on the project was BNBuilders and architect was STUDIOS Architecture.

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“[Rock Health] needed a lot of flexibility. They have their staff.

They also have their classes of start-ups that come through.

And then they also have a lot of public events,” said Pignolet.

The solution was simple.

“There’s a garage door in the middle that opens up so they can use the whole length of the space or divide it into zones,” Pignolet continued. “They can have an event going on and still work on the other side.

There’s an acoustic separation.”

Most of the furniture is also on wheels, to accommodate the collaborative and open environment Rock Health has cultivated for start-ups to intermingle and share ideas.

Two companies, two very different aspects of the healthcare industry, but both are bringing change to a field that has been reluctant to let go of tradition.

Kevin Miller

Commercial Account Executive

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1000 Burnett Avenue, Suite 400 Concord, CA 94520 Phone: 925-687-7880 3.10.14

NEW DESIGN COMCAST 30 | WORD ON THE STREET 37 | LPA 38 | APIGEE 40 | OPTIMIZELY 42

A former bank branch in San Jose has become a living laboratory for architecture firm LPA Inc. (See story page 38.)

COSTEA PHOTOGRAPHY, INC.

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Comcast

COMCAST’S WILD WEST OFFICE NEIL GONZALES JUSTIN MILLER WANTS HIS EMPLOYEES TO RUN WILD.

Wild with creativity, that is.

It helps that their workplace environment at Comcast Cable’s recently expanded Silicon Valley Innovation Center in Sunnyvale is particularly conducive to that goal, from the carpet’s quirky circuit-board pattern to conference rooms playfully named after songs and from the magnetic, writable walls to the cool exposed ceiling.

“Part of having an innovation center is to go crazy and free,” said Miller, general manager of Comcast Silicon Valley.

The Innovation Center was launched in 2011 in 40,000 square feet at the Moffett Towers, 1050 Enterprise Way. It now has been expanded to 70,000 square feet on two floors.

Everywhere, the center’s design works to stimulate employees’ innovative technological juices, inspiring them to conceive, develop and deploy cutting-edge products that improve how people connect to entertainment, information and their communities. Here is where 250 engineers, product designers and other employees brainstorm to come up with next-generation cable boxes, fresh features in home automation and new mobile applications.

READ ON

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The cable and media giant expands its Sunnyvale center and prepares for the next chapter of innovation

It’s OK to write on the walls at Comcast.

In fact, it’s encouraged. The design elements, which also include open ceilings and lots of light, are intended to foster freedom from conformity.

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Comcast

“Part of having an innovation center is to go crazy and free.”

JUSTIN MILLER, GENERAL MANAGER OF COMCAST SILICON VALLEY

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While the center is tech-centric, it also incorporates plenty of green elements, earning Gold certification from the Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design program of the U.S. Green Building Council.

Increasingly, companies in the Bay Area—especially in Silicon Valley— are going for such a workplace design that caters to employees’ creative and health-conscious sensibilities as a way to draw highly skilled talent in a competitive recruiting region and raise worker performance.

“It is one of the key things that differentiates the tech sector here from other places in the country,” said Randy Howder, a principal and workplace strategist at global design firm Gensler. “It’s something Bay Area companies continue to do

whether it be environmentally sustainable projects or mixed services they provide employees or a variety of spaces to meet and collaborate.”

Recruiting and retaining talent in the Bay Area market is highly competitive, said Melissa Wallin, principal and CEO of Blitz, a San Francisco-based architecture and interior design firm that worked on the Innovation Center. “So it’s best to have a definite tool to get talent,” she said.

Workplace design is a creative way to attract those top prospects.

One of the first design elements that a visitor notices upon walking into the center is a ceiling exposing structural beams, utility pipes and ventilation ducts. They crisscross one another above the 30,000-square-foot first floor of the Moffett Towers office building.

“We wanted people’s ideas to soar,” Miller said of the open ceiling.

“You need space for that” whereas a closed ceiling “feels corporate and rigid.

It’s a grid. It’s not inspiring. You feel you have to conform.”

Just as open is the center’s floor plan, fostering a sense of collaboration as workers can see and talk with each other from their desks obstructed only by their largescreen Apple computers. The floor plan also allows employees at any desk to enjoy a window view and natural outside light.

The space features a bright color scheme with pockets of glossy red on the walls. “We went for vibrancy,” Miller said.

The lines of the circuit-patterned carpet are also red, serving as a kind of directional guide to different work or break rooms and nooks.

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Comcast The work nooks are where teams of employees can meet on a specific project and feature glass walls on which they can write information, draw technical diagrams or post notes adhesively or magnetically. These nooks also have big-screen televisions that employees can use for project presentations and product demonstrations. “We have ‘pull-downs’ from the walls to access equipment to control what’s on the TVs,” Miller said.

Bay Area-based builder BCCI served as the general contractor for the expansion effort, whose cost was not disclosed, while the Urban Field Group, a San Franciscobased construction management company, was the project manager.

Being in Sunnyvale keeps the center close to the employees who live in the area and the high-caliber talent pool in Silicon Valley, Miller said. The center’s location is also near a Caltrain station and other amenities that benefit employees.

Preston Smalley, executive director of product at Comcast Silicon Valley, praised the expanded center. “This space fosters a lot of collaboration because you have a lot of open areas,” Smalley said. “Engineers sit next to designers, who sit next to product managers. It allows you to come together and together build a product.

You don’t have the traditional silos where people sit behind walls.”

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It’s easy to find a spot for a quick conference, even if it requires video access.

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Word on the Street

WHAT EXAMPLE OF GREAT DESIGN COMES TO MIND?

“I recently worked with Twitch, an up-and-coming tech company in San Francisco where Rapt was able to incorporate non-vertical walls down one of their office’s main hallways. It’s an excellent example of how a little bit of out of the box thinking can take a seemingly boring part of an office and turn it into something cool and creative at a relatively low cost to the client.”

LAURA SCRIPTURE, PRINCIPAL AND PROJECT MANAGER, SUMMIT CONSTRUCTION MANAGEMENT

“A concrete walkway at least 15' wide stretches from one end of Intuit’s campus to the other.

Other paths meet it, but none cross it. From its beginning you can’t see the end. It seems limitless. Nearby residents are encouraged to share the path with Intuit members. Now it’s all one neighborhood. It feels right— and inspiring.”

LORI SHERWOOD, SALES DIRECTOR, MG WEST

“Hands down this has to be the Think Tank that ASD designed for McDonald’s Corporation 1970. The entire 150,000 square foot office space was an open plan, and the Think Tank was a space that offered complete disassociation from the office work environment. It was a place for creative contemplation and complete privacy. The best part about this vintage design is that is still applicable and relevant to the way people work today!”

AMY TAMBURRO, VICE PRESIDENT/PRINCIPAL, ASD

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LPA Inc.

before

DOWNTOWN SAN JOSE’S LIVING LAB JENNA D’ILLARD LPA INC. SET UP ITS NEW OFFICE in downtown San Jose to serve as a tangible example of the architecture firm’s capabilities and corporate philosophy.

“We designed the space as a living lab that showcases stateof-the-art sustainable technologies that we can easily update over time,” said Patrick McClintock, a senior interior designer who co-leads the San Jose office. “Sustainability is in our DNA, so creating a space that reflects that culture was so important.”

Attracted by an expanding roster of Silicon Valley clients, the Irvine-based firm leased 6,000 square feet on the ground floor of a 14-story office tower at 60 South Market St. The new office, the firm’s fourth in California, opened in early December 2013.

within a budget. Further it really strikes a chord with the continuing revitalization of the downtown market.”

The creative team pointed to a “ventilated fold” as an innovative design element. It is a low, white ceiling that covers the more traditional workspace in the center of the office. Constructed of white perforated aluminum panels, the ventilated fold is meant to integrate all building systems into a single gesture that promotes air circulation, light reflectance and acoustic absorption, McClintock said. The mechanical system, for example, blows air down through the perforations and out the sides toward the open collaborative spaces next to the windows.

In keeping with its green mission, the firm also reduced inhouse water consumption by 50 percent when it replaced existing restroom fixtures with low flow urinals and toilets. Low VOC paints, green housekeeping practices and in-house recycling also contribute to the firm’s sustainable efforts.

The space boasts variable speed water source heat pumps that are 40 percent more efficient than Title-24 requirements. In addition, the HVAC design reduces energy use and ductwork by incorporating four high-volume, low-speed circulating fans to increase air movement and circulation.

The space already meets The American Institute of Architects 2030 Challenge for reducing energy consumption, and is on track to receive LEED for Commercial Interiors 2009 Gold certification.

LPA worked with Santa Clara-based One Workplace, an officefurniture distributor, to create a workspace that is versatile with modular furniture of 70 percent recycled content. The design allows teams to adapt their surroundings to suit each project.

Teams can move the furniture around so that they can work in variously sized groups as each project demands. They also can use large writing spaces on the walls. This helps them to be more creative and gives them more opportunity to get up and move around.

“LPA is very collaborative,” said Lynda Bisbee, market manager for One Workplace A + D. “All employees have choice and control for how they want to work.”

LPA’s newest office puts the architecture firm’s culture on display Originally built in 1986, the former bank site clearly needed a makeover. San Jose-based McLarney Construction Inc. served as general contractor on the project working with LPA’s in-house teams.

Creating access to natural light for all occupants proved critical for the project team, who quickly gutted the space of traditional perimeter offices to expose 16-foot tall windows previously reserved for bank executives. The natural light creates a vibrant and energetic atmosphere for clients, collaborators and employees.

Operating on a do-more-with-less philosophy, LPA implemented an open plan workspace and reused the fixed walls from the previous tenant improvement for the support spaces, while keeping the existing concrete floor and exposed structural frame as finished materials.

“This project affirms that old space can be given new life,” said Brett McLarney, vice president of McLarney Construction. “It also affirms that through collaborative design, goals can be achieved

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“It really strikes a chord with the continuing revitalization of the [San Jose] downtown market.”

BRETT MCLARNEY, MCLARNEY CONSTRUCTION

after LPA’s space puts sustainable design on display in downtown San Jose.

COSTEA PHOTOGRAPHY, INC.

LPA understands the branding benefits of its groundfloor location. People walking along Market Street past the new LPA office can view large screens displaying images of the firm’s current and past projects.

Overall, having a permanent Silicon Valley presence will prove valuable for LPA’s relationships with clients and collaborators said Peter Banzhaf, Senior Construction Manager with the Irvine Company, a privately held real-estate investment company and master-planner. LPA has worked with Irvine Company on multiple projects including as executive architect for office developments Santa Clara Gateway and Santa Clara Square, where it worked alongside New York-based Pei Cobb Freed & Partners Architects LLP on the projects.

“It’s a great resource not only for ourselves but for our leasing team and tenants,” said Banzhaf. “It’s a lot easier to meet somebody face-to-face.”

LPA chose downtown San Jose largely because it wanted to be in an urban center near a major airport and public transportation, McClintock said. But even more than that the company wanted to be part of a downtown revitalization movement. In downtown San Jose the company could use existing infrastructure instead of building anew.

McClintock also acknowledged that downtown San Jose made financial sense. Its 18 percent vacancy rate is still the highest of any downtown from there to San Francisco, even though the rate fell a percentage point and a half in the previous year. That means cheaper rent.

But that cheaper rent was offset by other expenses such as parking, which would be free in suburban spaces.

Although LPA’s modest lease will not significantly lower the downtown market’s vacancy rate, vibrant ground-floor leases of non-traditional retail can have a serious psychological impact on downtown revitalization, said Mark Ritchie, president of Ritchie Commercial Inc. As companies look to escape high Bay Area rental rates, Ritchie and other downtown advocates remain optimistic that San Jose will eventually reap the reward.

LPA joins approximately 25 other architecture and design firms located in downtown San Jose.

“We are getting the boom,” said Ritchie. “It’s getting here.”

“As you’d expect with an urban center, creative service agencies want to be in the center of things next to the amenities of downtown and around other creative people,” said Scott Knies, executive director of the San Jose Downtown Association.

LPA plans to grow its local staff from 10 to 30 as its Bay Area presence expands.

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Apigee

W FOR APIGEE, SAN JOSE SHOWED THE WAY ROBERT CELASCHI

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HEN APIGEE CORP. OUTGREW its Palo Alto headquarters, the application program interface company started looking around for 30,000 square feet of Class A space in a downtown setting.

Apigee wanted a place where its employees could walk down the street for a cup of coffee or to pick up some sundries.

But nothing nearby fit the bill, said Don Dixon, senior vice president of worldwide operations. Six months out from its planned move date, the company began to cast a wider net.

It ended up in 41,000 square feet on the 16th floor at 10 South Almaden Blvd. in San Jose.

“We didn’t spend a lot of time thinking about San Jose prior to looking at this building,” Dixon said. Even once they saw the space, a move further to the south took some deliberation. It was convenient for the executive team, most of which lives in San Jose. But it also turned to be a surprisingly easy commute for most of the staff, he said.

The Caltrain station is only a five-minute walk away.

“Price was not our first requirement. We were willing to spend for a higher price item if it met our requirements,” Dixon said.

The interior is the work of L. Kershner Design, a firm based in Santa Cruz. In keeping with the corporate trend of promoting employee collaboration, the office provides many spaces for people to gather in groups large or small.

“We had a lot of flexibility within the work experience itself,” said Lorri Kershner, owner of the design firm. “We were able to incorporate things like walls that could be written all over, walls that had embedded technology and power.”

Work surfaces can be raised or lowered. Permanent walls are for everyone to see the entire room. To provide a bit of aural privacy, the design includes a “pink noise” generator that spreads low-level random frequencies across the space.

“You are aware there are conversations around you, but you can’t understand what they are saying,” she said. The pink noise can be adjusted over particularly loud areas.

For visual vibrancy she chose splashes of orange on wall panels, the kitchen and company cafeteria, with accents of yellow and green elsewhere.

Most conference rooms are sized for one or two people for times when they need extra privacy. The main boardroom has walls of switch glass, which can be made transparent or opaque with the flick of a switch.

Kershner also focused on sustainability. That includes lowor non-VOC materials, but also some recycling from the old office.

Apigee brought its living walls from the old place, a modular system

by Calgary-based DIRTT Environmental Solutions that requires no plumbing to water the plants. The cubicles are from DIRTT as well.

In the garage, Apigee convinced building owner Equity Office to install chargers for electric vehicles.

Sustainability also extends to the outside environment. Only about 170 of the 250 or so people who work for Apigee are in the office all week. The rest come in only once or twice a week.

Low cubicles, wide-open spaces and lots of glass keep the Apigee offices bright and fresh.

JIM KIRKLAND

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Optimizely’s rocket logo sets the tone for the sci-fi aesthetic JASPER SANIDAD

Optimizely

OPTIMIZELY BLASTING OFF NANCY AMDUR

The company’s sci-fi aesthetic creates a vision of its own future

AFTER JUST FOUR YEARS, Optimizely’s business is taking off, a fact reinforced by the San Francisco-based startup’s rocket shipshaped office reception desk.

“We were a small company not too long ago,” said Lauren Puff, Optimizely’s operations manager.

The desk, with accents that light up in the company’s signature blue, is just one feature providing the cool factor favored by many high-tech companies.

“They are an innovative forward-thinking young tech company and have a sci-fi aesthetic, so [the design] is minimal modernism with a sci-fi technological focus,” said Zachary Meade, the lead designer on the project for Design Blitz, a San Francisco-based architecture and interior design firm.

Founded by former Google product managers Dan Siroker and Pete Koomen, Optimizely provides A/B testing of websites, allowing clients to find how different versions of their web pages affect performance. With investors such as Benchmark, Bain Capital Ventures and Google Ventures, Optimizely boasts more than 6,000 customers worldwide, including GoDaddy, Foot Locker and LexisNexis.

Designers kept the burgeoning tech company’s creativity in mind when building out the space.

Housed in a converted warehouse at 631 Howard St., in the heart of the city’s vital South of Market district, Optimizely’s 37,000 square foot office design incorporates the building’s industrial roots with an environment that inspires innovation and collaboration.

Centric General Contractors brought the design ideas to life.

Exposed concrete, beamed ceilings and wood paneling combine in an open floor plan with a center atrium giving unimpeded views of each of the office’s three floors.

It was important to “develop connectivity between the floors,” said architect Robert Remiker, whose Berkeley, Calif.-based namesake architecture firm worked on the project.

Using sustainable materials and forming a comfortable work environment also were key. For example, “we played off the concrete construction of the building and added a bamboo wall to counterpoint the hard and concrete surfaces. So you have surfaces that are rugged and add something with refinement to it,” Remiker said.

To continue the sci-fi theme, Design Blitz created a pattern of diagonal slashes on a boardroom wall to expose underlying concrete. A similar feature is included in the cafeteria. Modern furniture throughout, supplied by One WorkPlace, is covered in Optimizely’s blue along with charcoal gray and a vibrant green, providing a relaxing but lively atmosphere.

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Optimizely

“A really cool office space can be inspiring and has a certain ‘wow’ factor.”

HELEN PHUNG, OPTIMIZELY Ensuring that employees working in groups of various sizes could easily find a place to meet up was a main goal in designing the space, where the company moved in July of last year, said Puff, who worked with designers on the project.

“We wanted to have enough areas where teams of four or 20 had space to go and collaborate, and we wanted to make sure it was flexible so we could change the space as needed,” she said.

The office includes eight conference rooms, six smaller breakout rooms and one boardroom.

Conference rooms—which carry outer space-themed names such as Galaxy and Asteroid—have audio-visual capabilities to easily connect with the company’s overseas office in Amsterdam, said Helen Phung, a company spokesperson.

Further, because Optimizely employees can be mobile with their laptops, alternative spaces and furniture are

provided, such as lounge areas with oversize chairs facing each other over a coffee table.

“To be able to leave your desk and have the option of moving around helps [people] stay inspired and stimulated,” Phung said.

In the tech industry, collaboration is important, hence the need for an open floor plan and few doors, Meade said.

“If you look back 20 years, the majority of space was private offices. Now the majority of rooms are not enclosed,” he said. “[Tech companies] want an open environment that allows for small collaboration zones.”

To further encourage interaction, the cafeteria features an open kitchen, a family-style table and gaming area.

Other Optimizely office amenities include bicycle storage and built-in showers, added with bike commuters in mind.

However, the company chose its new

location not just for the interesting design possibilities, but, more practically, for its close proximity to transportation and downtown amenities such as restaurants, along with the ability to expand, Phung said.

At the end of 2013 Optimizely occupied the basement, main floor and mezzanine of the five-level building. In March it took over another floor, gaining 20,000 square feet with space for 10 conference rooms and 100 desks.

“The idea was we would have a space we could scale up to 400 folks in the next few years,“ she said.

Optimizely’s snazzy office space might attract potential employees, but Phung, who has a background working at startups, notes that the people you work with and company mission tend to trump design.

Although, she added, “A really cool office space can be inspiring and has a certain ‘wow’ factor.”

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Even in a futuristic office there’s room for a touch of nature.

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Glen Hiemstra is the founder and owner of Futurist.com. Glen is dedicated to disseminating information about the future to assist individuals, organizations, and industries in effective strategic planning. An internationally respected expert on future trends, long-­‐range planning and creating the preferred future, Glen has advised professional, business, and governmental organizations for two decades and has served as a technical advisor for futuristic television programs. Audience members for Glen’s keynote speeches and clients for his long-­‐range planning say things like, “Once you hear Glen Hiemstra speak, the future will never look the same.“

A writer as well as a speaker and consultant, Glen is the author of Turning the Future into Revenue: What Businesses and Individuals Need to Know to Shape Their Future (Wiley & Sons 2006) and co-author of Millennial City: How a New Generation Can Save the Future.

The Silicon Valley Chapter of IFMA is offering exceptional local FMP credential classes led by seasoned facility professionals

Glen has worked with many leading companies, government agencies and organizations across a wide variety of domains. These include Microsoft, The Home Depot, Boeing, Adobe, Ernst & Young, PaineWebber, ShareBuilder, Ambrosetti (Italy), Club of Amsterdam, U.S. Army Corps of Engineers – Savannah District, U.S. Army Corps of Engineers – Pacific Ocean Division, Northern Telecom, REI, Weyerhaeuser, Hewlett Packard, Novo Nordisk, U.S./Mexico JWC, APAX Partners, Costa Rica Hotel Association, Atlanta 2060, Tulsa 2025, Idaho Transportation 2030, Michigan DOT 2030, Federal Highway Administration Advanced Research, Eddie Bauer, Procter & Gamble, ACE Hardware, IHOP, John Deere, Weitz Construction, Lexis Nexus, Land O Lakes, GHD Engineering (Australia), SONAE (Portugal), and others.

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As a recognized expert in preferred future planning, Glen is a popular keynote speaker who can zero in on emerging trends in economics, demographics, energy, the environment, Internet and communications, science, technology, housing, and transportation. Glen goes beyond simple trend analysis to discuss the opportunities that we all have to shape the preferred future. In his consulting, Glen utilizes tools such as environmental scanning, scenario development, whole systems perspectives, paradigm shifts, and analysis of organizational culture for managing change to assist enterprises to achieve high performance.

August 21-22

A skilled communicator, Glen also offers a variety of informational resources for those interested in exploring the future.

Each month visitors from 120 nations come to Futurist.com and Glen’s blog for provocative snapshots of emerging ideas, trends, and technologies. Futurist.com produces short videos for the web on a variety of future topics. Glen can be followed at twitter.com/glenhiemstra and youtube.com/futuristspeaker.

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As a media technical advisor Glen has worked on several television productions, including with Steven Bochco Productions (creator of “Hill Street Blues” and “NYPD Blue”), among others. He is often cited in publications such as The Wall Street Journal, Forbes, US News & World Report, The Futurist, USA Today, Business Week, the Economist, and the Los Angeles Times.

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In a first career, Glen was an award-­‐winning educator; more recently he served as a Visiting Scholar at the Human Interface Technology Lab at the University of Washington, which worked on virtual and augmented reality technology.

For more information or to register: www.ifmasv.org admin@ifmasv.org 408-226-0190

Glen was educated at Whitworth College, the University of Oregon, and the University of Washington. He lives in Seattle, Washington with his wife Tracie. They have three adult children.

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RE-DESIGN

888 BRANNAN 48 | 435 INDIO WAY 54 | BARKERBLUE 61 | FINAL OFFER 64

After decades of darkness behind drab paint, 888 Brannan has new life that pays tribute to its origins as a warehouse. (See story on page 48.)

JOE FLETCHER

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A living wall brings life and color to the atrium.

JOE FLETCHER

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HAYDEN DINGMAN

888 Brannan gets a new look that also preserves its history

“AT ONE POINT during the redevelopment somebody asked us, ‘Oh, you’re going to put windows in that building? That must be expensive.’ And we said, ‘Actually, the windows are all there already,’ “ Stuart Gulland, president of Vantage Properties, said with a laugh.

He’s referring to 888 Brannan, a historic industrial building that had been painted over in drab grey during the ’80s. Vantage—partnering with SKS Investments—saw past the paint and bought it in 2011.

“It has some fabulous bones,” said Gulland. “If you see an old rendering of this building from 1917, the bones of the building are just so good in the solidity of the architecture, the size of the windows, the mass of the building.”

888 Brannan

LET THE SUNSHINE IN

Originally a warehouse for the National Carbon Co.’s Eveready batteries, then for paper distributor Blake, Moffit and Towne, 888 Brannan spent much of the last three decades as the Giftcenter & Jewelrymart.

And now the 445,000 square foot building evolves once again. The last of the of jewelry and gift vendors take up 110,000 feet in the lower level with a secondary entrance to set the space apart, and soon a small cafe. The lack of natural light is actually preferred by the showrooms.

The rest of the building is being renovated into office space for the city’s many tech companies, though with a nod to the past. The building is listed on the National Register of Historic Places.

“We wanted the building to be a faithful restoration, but it still took a lot of work to make sure that the things we needed to do to meet the needs of the technology industry would also make it consistent with the Secretary of Interior’s standards,” said Dan Kingsley, managing partner at SKS. There wasn’t anything Vantage planned for the restoration that couldn’t be done, but the project often required creative engineering.

The old steel sash, single-pane windows didn’t meet either the acoustic or energy-saving expectations of a modern office building and had layers of grey paint slathered over them. Double-pane, aluminum-sash windows had to be fitted into the spaces on the second, third and fourth floors without noticeably changing the look of the exterior. On the ground floor, the original windows were restored.

“That was one of the significant compromises we worked out with the Historic Preservation Commission,” said Kingsley.

The interior, however, was fair game for renovation. The atrium is key to the redesign. It’s an enormous space flooded with natural light, almost like being outside if not for the thin glass roof overhead. The space is shared amongst all the tenants for work and socializing.

“This type of space in the city is incredibly unique,” said Collin Burry, design director from architecture and design firm Gensler.

The airiness is drawing in tenants. “The unique ‘warehouse’ character of the building, the ample light streaming through the restored windows and skylight, and the open floor plan that fosters collaboration were key factors in our decision,” to

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The tiered balconies around the atrium are broken up by meeting room pods, which pay tribute to some of the houses listed with tenant AirBnB. JOE FLETCHER, JASPER SANIDAD

choose 888 Brannan, said Amy Jackson, spokeswoman for TripIt, maker of a travel organizing app.

The interior materials are simple: concrete, wood and steel. But here and there are small oases of color. One end of the space is dominated by a living wall almost as tall as the entire atrium, an enormous square emblazoned with a pattern of light and dark green swirls made from a thin layer of vine-like foliage.

The living wall helps refresh and revitalize the air. Orange furniture, designed by

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Council, dots the atrium and contrasts the flat-gray concrete.

In the tiered balconies that run around the perimeter of the space, monolithic white planes are broken up by meeting room “pods”—colorful areas sectioned off by way of thin frames, but still largely a part of the open atrium.

These meeting rooms are in part the work of AirBnB, the primary tenant at 888 Brannan. “When AirBnB came into the picture, they were like ‘Why don’t we pay homage to our listings?’” said Burry.

Thus one frame is loosely modeled after a house in Iceland, another modeled after a listing in Spain, one from Chile and one from Denmark.

But amongst all of the new and modern, there’s a legacy of 888 Brannan’s industrial past.

Railroad tracks guide you into the atrium as you enter—not the original tracks that once sat in the building, but a reminder that trains once came steaming into the space in service of batteries and paper and tangible things.

888 Brannan

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And no amount of designer furniture can fully disguise that the newly-remodeled courtyard area was once a loading dock.

“The tenants like that there’s a sense of history, there’s a sense of functionality and repurposing to the building,” said Gulland. 888 Brannan is a building that fully embraces San Francisco’s tumultuous, blue-collar past instead of trying to hide it.

“We wanted to be as timeless as possible,” said Burry. After all, “even this tech focus will pass at some point.”

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435 Indio Way

As a template of sustainable achievement, an R&D building in Sunnyvale gets a new life

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PHOENIX

RISING

I

Old materials found new uses in the revamped R&D building at 435 Indio Way in Sunnyvale.

LAURA KUDRITZKI

NEIL GONZALES

NSIDE AND OUT, the concrete tilt-up building at 435 Indio Way in Sunnyvale bears no resemblance to the 1970s vintage R&D structure that it once was. The 32,000-square-foot building had stood empty since 2006 along a U-shaped street lined with laboratories and warehouses. Sonora-based Sharp Development gutted it but saved the materials to re-create the building, which rises from the site like some sort of edificial phoenix.

“Over 93 percent of the material that was demolished from the old building was repurposed into this project,” said Kevin Bates, president of Sharp Development. Slate was removed from the exterior walls and converted into seating walls in the outdoor patio. Concrete trench material from the slab was used to form the sides of a monument sign outside. Sections of wood roof beams cut out for the skylights were used for the lobby floor, benches and towel racks in the showers.

The recycled material is just one of the many elements that make this building a showcase of workplace sustainability. It also is being touted as a net-zero structure, meaning it generates as much energy through renewable sources as it consumes.

Sharp also set out to show this type of construction could be affordable, even profitable. “The cash flow is significantly better than if we did a standard renovation,” Bates said. “We don’t have a power bill. We’ve driven operating expenses down.”

Bates said this uber energy-reducing renovation added $56 per square foot in value to the building compared to a typical rehabilitation. That added value exceeds any additional expense by $8 per square foot, he said.

Inside, large fans keep the air circulating steadily while operable windows let in outdoor breezes. Skylights help maximize daylight harvesting. From the outside, the singlestory building features a sleek shell, textured brown columns and large glass-panel entryways. The roof is laden with solar panels, and the windows use what Bates described as dynamic glass that transition from clear to semi-opaque depending on the sun’s angle to eliminate glare while maintaining outdoor views and a comfortable indoor temperature.

The property also offers bicycle parking, bocce ball courts, collaborative seating areas and gardens for employees to plant fruits and vegetables.

The building has an open floor plan, and the exposed beams, ducts and pipes enhance the openness and airy quality of the space.

Certainly, the project’s level of sophistication posed some design and engineering challenges. With all the concrete used

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recycled wood roof beams used for flooring, benches and towel racks solar panels cover the roof skylights

POWER BILL

recycled concrete

dynamic glass windows

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PER SQUARE FOOT INCREASE IN VALUE

LAURA KUDRITZKI

ceiling fans

operable windows

REUSE OF DEMOLISHED MATERIAL

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435 Indio Way Ken Huesby, CEO & President of Hillhouse Construction (left) during a site visit with Indio developer, Kevin Bates.

LAURA KUDRITZKI

“The cash flow is significantly better than if we did a standard renovation.”

KEVIN BATES, SHARP DEVELOPMENT

in the building, there were acoustical issues. Part of the solution was installing wood-picket walls that absorb sound but still appear aesthetically pleasing.

Another challenge was harmonizing the technology that controls the various mechanical elements from the windows to fans.

For that, the team developed a management system integrating different applications. “Getting it all coordinated took a ton of engineering,” Bates said.

The project team included San Jose-based builder Hillhouse Construction, Oakland-based engineering firm Integral Group and RMW architecture & interiors.

Now that the challenges have been addressed, Bates said this level of sustainable renovation could be replicated fairly easily.

In fact, he is involved in a similar effort right next door with a two-story, 34,000-square foot building.

People usually gravitate toward successful projects and try to duplicate them, said Jeff Arrillaga, a Cornish & Carey leasing broker for 435 Indio. Soon after completion it drew “a great amount of interest” from prospective tenants, brokers and developers, he said. The project “created something that really resonated with tenants in the marketplace,” Arrillaga added.

“A lot of it has to do with the hiring of engineers. It’s how you create an environment that engineers want to work in.”

Indeed, today’s generation of highly skilled employees expects “a certain level of environmental authenticity,” said Randy Howder, a principal and workplace strategist at global design firm Gensler. “If a company shows it is responsible to the environment, it shows how responsible it is in treating its employees.”

As of early February, 435 Indio was unoccupied, but lease negotiations were under way with a prospective high-tech tenant. Bates would not reveal what rent the space was potentially fetching. Even now that it’s off the market, multiple developers are still intrigued by the building while other prospective tenants have lined up in case the current lease negotiation falls through, Arrillaga said.

While big Silicon Valley companies have been designing many of the same sustainability and productivity strategies into their offices, 435 Indio shows it can be done at a price that makes sense

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on a smaller scale. This tells small and mid-sized companies that “they can compete and grow their business with an inspiring workplace that’s healthy and socially responsible,” said Ken Huesby, president and CEO of Hillhouse.

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FOUR CORNERS properties

ROBERT CARLSEN

BarkerBlue transforms its business to coordinate an expanding digital universe of construction documentation

FINDING A PROFITABLE NICHE in the modern world of reprography (the reproduction of graphics), San Mateo-based BarkerBlue has gone beyond the cloud and into a more personal relationship with the architecture, engineering and construction community.

Nineteenth century blueprint technology was overtaken by digital building information modeling products in the late 1990s and early 2000s. Project team members are now able to communicate among themselves on design, construction and operational aspects in real time. Technical

BarkerBlue

DEATH OF THE BLUEPRINT

drawings not only can be displayed on desktops and laptops, but on iPads and other mobile devices. Which brings us to the latest evolution of BarkerBlue, a provider of document management, digital imaging and display printing services.

This past October, BarkerBlue entered a strategic alliance with another blueprint technology provider, San Francisco-based PlanGrid, which developed a cloud-based mobile app for iPads.

One example of the alliance involves a DPR Construction project in the South Bay, where BarkerBlue is managing the contractor’s PlanGrid portal.

“They are indexing, versioning, uploading and hyperlinking the plans for ease of use and tracking,” said Ted van der Linden, DPR’s director of sustainability. BarkerBlue’s value is its “keen knowledge and understanding of our business and the way we work with our clients, architects and subcontractors,” he said. “They have very experienced digital asset managers, which are the backbone of the type of service they provide.”

The secret to BarkerBlue’s success is the human touch behind the software and the technology, said CEO Gene Klein. Other cloud collaboration and storage sites, such as Box, Dropbox, Projectwise and Newforma, don’t have human oversight.

“The integrity of the data and its critical doppelganger, metadata, is completely dependent on the skill and accuracy of everyone on the project who uploads to the sites,” he said. With multiple collaborators, there is almost no change of everyone maintaining identical taxonomy and accuracy across multiple team members to multiple repositories.

“That’s where we come in, the guys in the center who make sure the same version gets to all information sites,” he said.

In just about every release of drawings and specifications, there are multiple errors in image justification, spelling, missing sheets, misnamed sheets or other aspects. Left uncorrected, those mistakes amplify and carry a great risk that cost time and money. Klein cited a recent McGraw-Hill report that the cost of building from the wrong set of plans comes close to $20 billion annually in the U.S. construction market.

“We know there is a lot of bidding and building off the wrong plans, because we are so often asked for an audit trail on

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who has seen or downloaded documents,” Klein said. “It is essentially litigation support, but we really head off litigation because we produce proof that the sub or contractor actually did or did not view and interact with the drawings in question.

The McGraw-Hill number, in our opinion, will get even bigger, because there are now more silos of information, disconnected from each other and not containing the same metadata or versioning protocols.”

BarkerBlue, whose operations are housed in an enormous former roller skating arena just off Highway 101 in San Mateo, Calif., was founded in 1961

by Jerry Barker. Klein’s family bought the company in 1976 when he was a freshman at Stanford. He worked summers at the firm and then joined the company full-time after his graduation in 1979.

Reflecting the march of technology through the years, the company was renamed Barker Blueprint & Photographic Co., BarkerBlue Reprographics, BarkerBlue Digital Imaging and, finally, just plain BarkerBlue. Klein is currently the sole owner. Under him work 12 digital asset managers, one full-time workflow consultant, five customer service staff members, two IT directors, an AEC

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production staff of 14, and a logistics and delivery staff of 10. Compared to an unmanned cloud, which would include a help desk somewhere in the United States and “lots of programmers,” Klein said BarkerBlue’s primary focus is on service, not technology.

John Roach, BarkerBlue’s general manager, described the company as a specialist in organizing, versioning and fulfillment, in either digital or hard-copy format, of documents used during live construction.

The company also hosts information on existing buildings, including drawings, specifications, operations and maintenance manuals, warranties and native BIM or CAD files. Project documents that BarkerBlue scans and organizes include print drawings, requests for information, permits, submittals, budgets, spec books, meeting minutes, floor plans and site photos and videos.

“Documents hosted within our custom-branded DFS web portals can then be accessed by various parties and everything is fully tracked,” said Roach.

The firm’s capacity as a digital hub, hosting the area’s AT&T OC12 fiber internet rack in its server room, expands with a dedicated DS3 connection to the internet

that offers 100MB per second of transfer speed for outside users. That means an end user could download 500 full-size, 30-inch-by-42-inch drawings in 10 minutes, depending on their download speed, according to Konstantin Koshelev, director of digital assets.

Each user needs a unique log-in and password, as well as passwords specific to each project within the web portal.

“We also have the ability to limit what end users see once logged in via hierarchical permissions,” Koshelev said. “We conduct regular onsite and offsite backups for information stored in our system, which uses SSL and code signing certificates.”

BarkerBlue hasn’t completely given up physical images. Its other specialty is digital imaging and display graphics for interiors or exteriors of museums, retailers and office buildings. For example, on Jay Paul Co.’s 181 Fremont project, a 54-story multiuse tower now under construction adjacent to the San Francisco Transbay Transit Center, contractors had to remove some trees along a backside fence. BarkerBlue was brought in to create a realistic image of the former trees and the fence along the same wall that will be visible from the offices.

“That’s where we come in, the guys in the center who make sure the same version gets to all information sites.”

GENE KLEIN, BARKERBLUE

Working out of a site that once housed a roller rink, Gene Klein leads a team that keeps the wheels turning for construction projects.

LAURA KUDRITZKI

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Final Offer

TWENTY-FIVE AND COUNTING AS INTERVIEWED BY ROBERT CELASCHI

< Greg Warner Brooks Walker >

BROOKS WALKER AND GREG WARNER

You’ve said that architecture should be “expressive, timeless and always in unity with the natural beauty of the site.” But you also say that thoughtful designs emerge through listening to and learning from clients.

How do you deal with clients who want trendy features?

WARNER: If they feel strongly about something we try to accommodate it.

Sometimes we get through it, and they see why we don’t think their specific idea may be appropriate, but sometimes the other way around would happen. We have a client with beautiful beachfront property, and he wants a fireplace in the bedroom.

The dialogue was more about, “Why do you want fire in your room? What about fire is appealing?” If we can solve for that, rather than the utility aspect, we can come up with a solution. That happens a lot.

Are there any trends in architecture that you find especially pleasing or annoying?

WALKER: I find something both pleasing and annoying. That is architecture as sculpture. I think this was started in a big way by Frank Gehry and [the Guggenheim Museum] Bilbao. Used judiciously, it is a powerful aesthetic and pleasing. But when that becomes the trend, where everybody has to do their own screaming, “Look at me,” it starts to become kind of annoying

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BRUCE DAMONTE

are celebrating 25 years since they started their namesake architectural firm in 1989. The firm is planning project tours throughout the year for their staff as well as an open house for collaborators in the fall.

At the onset of their business, the San Francisco-based architects did a lot of residential remodels and additions, scrambling for whatever work they could find. “Ultimately you find your comfort zone, and in our case it was residential design,” Warner said.“[Early on] we likened ourselves to a wedding band that we could play the songs of many others and do them well. Now we describe ourselves more as the songwriter.

We compose our own music.”

Brooks Walker and Greg Warner look back on a quarter-century in business and silly. More closely related to our work, which is primarily residential, I see a trend that is positive—the building codes and people’s own values are really pushing for sustainability. The most important thing in sustainability is to build enduring architecture. You are much better off doing design that lasts than doing trendy design that gets ripped out in 10 years even though the materials are the most sustainable stuff.

sophisticated. It was a residential project. It was in an area of very high seismic activity in California. The client basically wanted to self-insure by making the house earthquake proof. The whole house is a steel frame, steel wall sheer plate system. It is a total red-iron structural frame. We designed the window extrusions made out of bronze. It was a highly customized house. I think the results turned out very beautifully.

What has been your most challenging project?

Are clients any more sophisticated than they were 25 years ago?

WARNER: As a partner in charge I’d say the Quintessa winery, because we had never done a winery, and this was of significant scope. We were out over our skis. We were given a chance, and we took it very seriously. But we didn’t try to fake it. We had some very honest and authentic ideas, but knew what we didn’t know and expressed those things and made sure the client knew we needed help in terms of understanding the process of winemaking.

WARNER: I think they are certainly more educated or aware of things, by the nature of the media and what is out there. I joke about it, but it is the Pottery Barn effect, the retail-ization of architecture.

WALKER: Probably one of the most challenging was also one of the most

WALKER: Twenty-five years ago you had clients tearing stuff out of a handful of magazines and bringing it to our offices in a manila folder. With websites like Pinterest and Houzz, where global ideas can spread quickly, clients are much more informed and aesthetically sophisticated.

know unknowns Construction delays and overruns will be the exception, not the norm.

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