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(SAN FRANCISCO) – Hines, the international real estate firm, has been a longtime proponent of public art enhancing the community, and the sculpture at 33 Tehama, the firm’s newest 35-story multifamily high-rise in San Francisco, is no exception. World-renowned, Japanese contemporary artist Yayoi Kusama’s vibrant Flowers That Bloom at Midnight was recently installed in the plaza outside the tower lobby for the enjoyment of residents and the public.

Kusama’s bright, fantastically scaled bloom rests on its side and features bright red petals with white dots and an exaggerated eye in its center. The artist collaborated with CMG Landscape Architecture on the installation and surrounding plaza design. Art consultant Michele C. Quinn, principal of MCQ Fine Art, LLC, managed the process.

Flowers That Bloom at Midnight presents a continuation of the artist’s epic, site-specific sculptural installations of bright, fantastically scaled plants commissioned for public and private institutions. This series comprises individual flowers, which measure between 4 and 16 feet high and either stand upright or lie down, with petals likewise facing upward or sideways. Cast in highly durable fiberglass-reinforced plastic and hand painted in urethane, each flower is uniquely colored and feature Kusama’s characteristic polka dots. In contrast to the site-specific ensembles, these works further have eyes in the centers, highlighting another recurring element in the artist’s work.

Hines Project Manager Brendan Cronshaw stated, “We are thrilled to unveil the new Kusama piece in our plaza and share this with our community. Her whimsical designs will be a conversation starter for residents, locals and passersby for years to come.”

“Hines has an enduring reputation for developing landmark office and mixed-use projects of significant scale and architectural stature. Creating equally significant public spaces is an important part of development projects, which benefits not only the tenants and residents of Hines properties but also the community as a whole,” added Hines Senior Managing Director Paul Paradis.

Kusama’s popularity has skyrocketed in recent years with her Infinity Mirrors exhibit, currently touring the U.S. and Canada through October of this year. Museums across the country have seen record-breaking attendance with Kusama’s most significant North American tour in nearly two decades.

Additional high-resolution photographs available for download by clicking here.

About Yayoi Kusama

Yayoi Kusama’s work has transcended two of the most important art movements of the second half of the twentieth century: pop art and minimalism. Her extraordinary and highly influential career spans paintings, performances, room-size presentations, outdoor sculptural installations, literary works, films, fashion, design, and interventions within existing architectural structures, which allude at once to microscopic and macroscopic universes.

Born in 1929 in Matsumoto, Japan, Kusama briefly studied painting in Kyoto before moving to New York City in the late 1950s. She began her large-scale Infinity Net paintings during this decade, and went on to apply their obsessive, hallucinatory qualities to her three-dimensional work. Her iconic polka dots, organic shapes, and optical environments display an unparalleled vitality that becomes hypnotic and self referential, merging concepts of flatness and depth, presence and absence, and beauty and the sublime. In a unique style that is both

sensory and utopian, Kusama’s work possesses a highly personal character, yet one that has connected profoundly with large audiences around the globe, as throughout her career she has been able to break down traditional barriers between work, artist, and spectator. For more information, please visit http://yayoi-kusama.jp/

About CMG Landscape Architecture

CMG is a mission oriented studio working to increase social and ecological wellbeing through artful design. CMG works on a wide range of initiatives, project scales and types, with the philosophy that all of our work accrues as the single overarching project of improving communities. With utility and aesthetics as drivers, CMG creates urban landscapes that explore the democracy of public space and ecological function. For more information, please visit https://www.cmgsite.com/

About 33 Tehama

33 Tehama is a 403-unit, for-rent multifamily development located in San Francisco’s South of Market (SoMa) neighborhood. The 35-story project consists of 278,097 square feet. Designed by Arquitectonica, the architecturally-distinct 33 Tehama features a fitness center, clubroom, rooftop solarium, outdoor terrace, and ground-floor retail/art space.

About Hines

Hines is a privately owned global real estate investment firm founded in 1957 with a presence in 201 cities in 24 countries. Hines has approximately $111 billion of assets under management, including $60 billion for which Hines provides fiduciary investment management services, and $51 billion for which Hines provides third-party property-level services. The firm has 108 developments currently underway around the world. Historically, Hines has developed, redeveloped or acquired 1,295 properties, totaling over 422 million square feet. The firm’s current property and asset management portfolio includes 506 properties, representing over 210 million square feet. With extensive experience in investments across the risk spectrum and all property types, and a pioneering commitment to sustainability, Hines is one of the largest and most-respected real estate organizations in the world. Visit www.hines.com for more information.

https://www.hines.com/news/33-tehama-celebrates-public-art-with-kusama-piece

The competition for renters in this city is heating up so much that a new San Francisco apartment tower offers butler service included in the rent.

Developer Hines offers a service known as “Hello, Alfred” that provides weekly cleaning and grocery delivery services at its new 33 Tehama Street tower. The butler service is also on call to organize closets or pantries, run errands, order catering for a dinner party or score theater tickets, all for an additional fee.

“This is a whole new level of service that San Francisco has never seen,” Paul Paradis, the company’s senior managing director based in San Francisco, said. “When you live here, you don’t need a gym or private club membership. You don’t even need a car.”

San Francisco is brimming with luxury apartments, but Hines wanted to achieve “condo quality” with 33 Tehama, Paradis said. Hines developed the building with partner Invesco.

The prices are also top-of-the-market: One-bedroom apartments are priced from $3,600 to $4,600 per month, two-bedrooms for $5,375 to $6,300 per month and the eight penthouses, ranging 2,100 to 2,300 square feet, go for $15,000 to $18,000 per month. About 15 percent of the units in the building set aside at lower rents for residents earning up to 55 percent of the area median income, which would be $44,400 for a single person.

“Our strategy was to have the highest quality and service level for rental housing in San Francisco,” Paradis said.

That strategy appears to be working. Within a few months of starting leasing, renters snapped up roughly a quarter of the building’s 403 apartments.

The 35-story building, designed by Miami-based Arquitectonica, features a two-toned glass exterior. The entire top floor of the building is made up of amenities such as lounges, co-working space, a kitchen for entertaining, outdoor terraces, barbeque areas and a game room all with expansive views of the city and bay.

Meanwhile, the building’s gym rivals any full-service fitness center with top-of-the line equipment and group classes along with a spa.

During the past few years, apartment rents have skyrocketed in San Francisco by 49 percent since 2010, according to RealPage, a provider of software and data analytics for the real estate industry.

Meanwhile, developers have added more new housing in San Francisco than the city has seen in years: roughly 5,000 new homes in 2016 and 3,300 new homes in 2017, according to data from the City of San Francisco and Polaris Pacific. Like many developers of new apartments, Hines is offering a month of free rent to lure residents.

“The amount of product on the market right now is not troubling,” Paradis said. “Offering concessions for new buildings is typical.”

Even with an influx of new supply, housing demand remains robust in San Francisco and the Bay Area, and apartment vacancy in the city is less than 5 percent, he said.

Given all that, it’s no wonder Hines beefed up on amenities and luxury details in 33 Tehama.

The building sits on the south end of SoMa near Rincon Hill and the entrance to the Bay Bridge allows residents to walk to work in nearby office buildings or the Financial District north of Market or easily access freeways and public transportation.

“We like being on Tehama Street,” Paradis said. “We can be on a quiet street, but still be right in the middle of San Francisco.”

Hines started working on 33 Tehama about five years ago, when developers could find development sites at more reasonable prices, Paradis said. The company paid $50 million for the land, which had been owned by a family for several decades. The total development cost is above $160 million, according to public records.

The tower is one of several new highrises that have popped up in San Francisco within blocks of a forthcoming regional bus terminal known as the Salesforce Transit Center. The 33 Tehama site also borders the 3.5-acre Under Ramp Park that is part of the Transbay redevelopment and is slated for completion in 2020.

Hines was an early player in the 40-acre Transbay district entitling various sites including Salesforce Tower at 415 Mission St. and the terminal building. The developer is now seeking entitlements on a site known as Parcel F at 550 Howard St. Hines proposed a 61-story tower made up of 200 homes, a 220-room hotel, and 289,000 square feet of office for that site.

The company is also building MacArthur Commons, 395 apartments next to the MacArthur BART Station in Oakland that will be complete in the fall. Also in Oakland, Hines and partner Invesco have approval to build a 225-unit development with Invesco Real Estate at 2270 Broadway.

This article originally appeared in San Francisco Business Times.
https://www.bizjournals.com/sanfrancisco/news/2018/03/21/san-francisco-new-apartments-33-tehama-hines-soma.html

© American City Business Journals, 2018.

When architects Robert Edmonds and Vivian Lee moved from New York City to San Francisco, they discovered something many outsiders don’t know about the City by the Bay: The fog is not distributed equitably.

After a few years, they’d had enough. “We wanted to move to an area with more sun and fewer hills,” says Lee. “Plus, we were looking for a neighborhood with a vibrant Main Street.”

They found the conditions they were looking for in Noe Valley. But while the charming neighborhood has what many would consider a more favorable climate, it is also home to some of the more eye-popping real estate prices in the city. The couple eschewed the properties that might incite a bidding frenzy and instead looked for homes that would be more likely to induce a sinking feeling.

“As architects, we didn’t want to live in someone else’s architecture, we wanted to live in our own,” says Edmonds. “We started looking for an extreme fixer where we could make a project for ourselves. We were searching for the place nearly everyone else would consider a disaster.”

The only way to describe the 750-square-foot home they found was rough. “It was in very, very poor shape,” says Edmonds.

In other words, it was perfect for them.

Given the size and the condition of the house, the architects determined the best thing to do would be to tear it down and start over, a process that promises a lengthy review and much discussion at the Planning Department. Developers eyeing the house must have determined the same thing, as most decided to pass on the property. “They knew the project would be in Planning for a year or two—or possibly longer. That’s the kind of thing most developers aren’t eager to take on. But we could wait,” says Edmonds. (The process took them more than two years.)

The home they created, a dramatic house with a loft-like feel, proved to be worth the wait for the couple and their two children. “We wanted to make a modern home for a family,” says Lee. “There’s a perception that modern homes are not practical for real people, and we set out to disprove that by showcasing the functionality of the style.”

Although they had remodeled homes for themselves, they had never built one from scratch. They found the process liberating. “We had the freedom to design what we wanted. We just didn’t have the freedom to pay for it,” says Edmonds. “We had to make very deliberate decisions about what we wanted and what we could afford. But as we tell our clients, sometimes constraint leads to great design.”

Although they were starting with a blank slate, the architects decided to subtly reference the past and nearby dwellings by giving the new house a gabled roof. “Most modern homes have flat roofs, and we wanted to see if we could make it work with a gabled roofline,” says Edmonds.

Even though they could have added another story, the architects chose not to do so. “We were going for quality, not quantity,” explains Edmonds.

The couple decided to rethink what is needed in an interior. “We tried to eliminate all of the boundaries you find in a traditional home,” says Lee. “We don’t have a formal foyer or formal living room. There are very few hallways. It’s basically one big space.”

They flipped the layout by putting the bedrooms on the lower level and the kitchen and living room on the upper level. By putting the public areas on the upper level they not only get to enjoy the view during the daylight hours, but they can access the outdoors via terraces at the front and rear of the home. “It seemed logical to have a layout where you can enjoy the views during the daylight hours,” says Lee.

The living area is sunken, three feet down from the kitchen. “We followed the topography of the site, and we chose to see it as an opportunity rather than a liability,” Lee says. “By allowing the living room to be on a lower level, we could build a home that appears smaller rather than massive [there’s no need to ‘build up’ a slope]. We also created an opportunity for built-in seating and a ‘stage’ where our boys like to perform.”

The interior is largely white but, in the kitchen, a monolithic black island makes for a crisp contrast. The walls of white cabinets, with no hardware in sight, seem to dissolve into the background—until you open them. Behind the white cabinet fronts are gray interiors. “We love the contrast,” says Lee. “But for the most part, we do want the kitchen to recede. If it doesn’t read as a kitchen, it makes the space much more fluid.”

The home can be considered minimalist, but not monastic. With two children and mere mortal status, the architects had to make the minimal aesthetic work for a regular family.

“Just like most people, we have a toaster and a microwave,” admits Edmonds. “We just made sure that we have lots of storage in the kitchen, extra storage closets, and room for the kids where they can be themselves and be messy if they want.”

But that’s not to say the kids don’t appreciate their new home. “It was a great exercise for them to see the building process,” says Lee. “Not only did they get to see what we do for a living, they saw the effort behind it. In a disposable society, I think this showed them how to make something lasting.”

This article originally appeared on Curbed San Francisco.
https://sf.curbed.com/2018/1/8/16850704/san-francisco-home-tour-edmonds-lee
© Vox Media Inc., 2018.

The refined designs for the public art to adorn the 35-story, 403-unit apartment building nearing completion at 33 Tehama Street (a.k.a. 41 Tehama) will be presented to San Francisco’s Planning Commission on Thursday afternoon.

Yayoi Kusama’s Flowers That Bloom At Midnight sculpture will be set on a base in front of 33 Tehama’s lobby plaza on the southwestern side of the tower which will eventually connect to the future Oscar Park.

In addition, a series of Kusama’s characteristic polka dots will be incorporated in the plaza’s paving and two oval planters will provide permanent seating along with some additional green and shade.

This article originally appeared on SocketSite.
http://www.socketsite.com/archives/2017/09/the-public-art-to-adorn-33-tehama-in-the-transbay-district.html
© SocketSite, 2018.