As the second in a series of spotlight events celebrating winners of AIANY’s Transportation and Infrastructure Design Excellence Awards, this program will focus on Salesforce Transit Center, an Honor Award winner in the Structures category.
Salesforce Transit Center consolidates operations of 11 bus systems in the Bay Area and to serve as a future rail terminus for the Caltrain commuter rail and California High Speed Rail connecting San Francisco to Los Angeles. Anticipated to serve over 45 million people annually, the transit center has become a transportation hub and catalyst for a new, vibrant Financial District in a once underdeveloped neighborhood in the city. The 1.5 million-square-foot facility is a large-scale piece of infrastructure designed to accommodate multiple transportation modes. The project brief called for a long horizonal facility spanning four city blocks that would spur vertical development. The design team immediately realized that adjacent towers would focus attention squarely on the roof of the transit facility. Asking how the roof become more than a mechanical penthouse, led the design team to propose a green roof that soon became a park. The approach transformed the facility from a terminal for arrival and departure into a community resource that would become a destination.
