Fully customized architectural walls tailored to fit one of San Francisco's most seismically safe buildings
The newly constructed, state-of-the-art Public Safety Building in San Francisco’s Mission Bay district measures 270,000 square feet and sits two blocks from AT&T Park. The building houses the San Francisco Police Department headquarters and the Southern District Police Station. The campus is also home to a neighborhood San Francisco Fire Department fire station. It is one of the city’s most seismically safe buildings and is targeting LEED Gold Certification.
The exterior features a glass curtain wall façade which, according to HOK, allows office floors to take advantage of views and natural light while providing an appearance that reflects open government. As a result, the goal for the interior was to create a complementary customdesigned office storefront.
“We needed fully custom wall systems. KI was one of only two companies with the ability to customize their product to the level that this project required.”
Paul De Freitas, Architectural Associate for San Francisco Public Works
KI’s Genius and Lightline walls provided the ideal solutions to support the overall storefront design, which included addressing a large number of private offices along a long corridor. De Freitas said he wanted to avoid a repetitive “sea of doors.”
“Instead, we wanted to establish a larger, more aesthetically appealing pattern so that the appearance would be more architectural.”
The design team created a larger rhythm with 10' wide custom sets of doors pivoting from a center panel, with matching 10' sections of glass. Based on this vision, KI worked with the design team in hand selecting and sequencing the salvaged Monterey Cypress veneers into custom sections that were book-matched and had no interrupting frames.
Additionally, because the building houses police and fire administrative operations, KI further ensured proper acoustic qualities by installing Mull-It-Over products around its Lightline walls for added soundproofing.
KI’s manufacturing capabilities were essential to achieving the final results. “This was a new challenge. Yet during the shop-drawing phase, KI was very open to trying out our ideas,” said De Freitas.
KI delivered on its ability to meet the unique application needs, unusual floor transitions, and aesthetic design of the spaces within the Public Safety Building.
“We now have a very unique office storefront that complements the building and is not off-the-shelf. It literally is as envisioned.”
Paul De Freitas, Architectural Associate for San Francisco Public Works
