After more than a decade of planning, the first phase of the new San Francisco Transit Center has been inaugurated. The new Salesforce Transit Centerdesigned by Pelli Clarke Pelli ArchitectsThe new bus station, which brings together 11 bus and train lines from around the Bay Area under one roof. But all the attention is focused on the rooftop park, which opened to the public on August 11.
The Park Salesforce Transit Centerwith its 22 hectares that occupy the entire roof of the building, is one of the most important areas in the world. of vegetation largest to open in San Francisco in years. It is located in the East Cut neighborhood, a dense commercial area of the city that has few parks. A bridge from the fifth floor of the Salesforce Tower, next to the Transit Center, connects this building to a park plaza, which in turn provides access to an amphitheater, lawns and botanical gardens.
Designed by PWP Landscape Architecture, this park is unique for motivate a change in regulations of the city. When PWP Landscape Architecture won the project in 2007, the firm proposed to use gray water from a nearby skyscraper, which was also planned to be built, to irrigate the entire park. At the time, that clashed with San Francisco's zoning regulations: the use of graywater was not legal in any commercial project. But PWP Landscape Architecture, Pelli Clarke Pelli and several other collaborators worked with the San Francisco Public Utilities Commission to change the regulation, which now allowed graywater to be used in projects of this type.
However, because the high-rise that was to provide the graywater and the Transit Center became separate projects with different timelines, the landscape architects were unable to use graywater to irrigate the entire park. Instead, thegraywater from the drains at the Transit Center will be conveyed to the park's wetland garden.which will filter the water. The clean water will then be reused in the building's restrooms.
The park has been intentionally designed so that each sub-section of the park acts as a mini neighborhood park for the surrounding area: there is a OPEN PLACE which connects to the Salesforce Tower, a amphitheaterareas of lawn y botanical gardens with California native plants, as well as the wetland garden, a desert vegetation garden and a Mediterranean garden.
The park, being in a building, closed at night and has private securitywhich will prevent homeless people from occupying the green space after sundown, since the big software company Salesforce has paid $110 million to see its name on the Transit Center, and they want it sparkling clean, no matter how much of a public space it is. The estimated annual cost to maintain the elevated park is $1.5 million.
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