Studio Gang Completes Verde, A Mixed-Use Tower in San Francisco’s New Mission Rock Neighborhood

Studio Gang, the international architecture and urban design firm led by Jeanne Gang, has completed Verde, a new mixed-use tower in Mission Rock, a 28-acre redevelopment on the San Francisco waterfront. The latest addition to the neighborhood, Verde is designed to be Mission Rock’s central social hub and embrace the city’s indoor-outdoor lifestyle. Verde is the fourth and final building to be completed in Phase One of Mission Rock, which will be built out in several phases guided by a set of design principles developed by a design cohort led by Studio Gang.

Located in the heart of the Mission Rock neighborhood, Verde takes its name from its distinctive, green-colored glazed ceramic cladding, which allows for variations in color and depth at multiple scales. The 23-story building provides 254 new residential units – 59 of which are designated for middle income households at below market rents, creating new and more affordable options in a city challenged with a housing shortage.

Verde also features a ground-level café, shops, and micro-activations that include a water bottle refill station and a living wall, which add to the neighborhood’s character and public realm. Resident amenities include a fitness center, lounges, a games room, a golf simulator, and a shared outdoor dining space equipped with a barbecue and firepit. A sky deck on the tower’s roof provides another space for residents to take in views of Oracle Park, the Bay, and the city’s skyline.

“For Verde, we wanted to create spaces where residents could connect with each other while feeling embraced by the natural beauty of San Francisco,” said Studio Gang’s Founding Partner Jeanne Gang. “The tower’s floorplates are carved back at the corners to create outdoor terraces that are unique across each floor. These terraces are oriented to maximize sunlight and protect from the wind while providing residents views of the surrounding city and San Francisco Bay. From the street, the alternating carved terraces give the building a rhythmic play of light.”

The building also prioritizes healthy living, climate resiliency, energy conservation, and increased biodiversity. Conveniently located near major public transit nodes, the site offers access to the waterfront Bay Trail and over 250 bicycle parking spaces to encourage alternative and active modes of transportation. The development is elevated five feet above sea level to ensure protection against future sea level rise and storm surges. The building reuses and recycles greywater for irrigation and non-potable needs, as well as sources hot and cold water from a District Energy Plant. Planted with regionally appropriate flora, the sky deck attracts birds, butterflies, and other pollinators to enhance urban biodiversity. The building is targeting LEED Gold certification.

Verde is part of the 28-acre Mission Rock redevelopment effort led by Mission Rock Partners, a public-private partnership between Tishman Speyer, the San Francisco Giants, and the Port of San Francisco. The new neighborhood offers unprecedented public access to San Francisco Bay and introduces more than 500 new homes and 600,000 sf of retail and office space to San Francisco’s Central Waterfront. The first phase of Mission Rock features China Basin Park, a new 5-acre public park designed by SCAPE that opened in April 2024, and four new buildings, each designed by an internationally renowned architecture practice. In addition to Verde, Phase One’s buildings include The Canyon, a residential building designed by MVRDV that opened in June 2023, the new home of Visa’s Market Support Center designed by Henning Larsen that opened in June 2024, and a new commercial building designed by WorkAC.

Before work began on Phase One, Studio Gang’s Urbanism and Civic Impact practice was selected by the San Francisco Giants and Tishman Speyer to lead a design cohort comprised of the teams chosen to design the buildings in the initial phase. As the leader of the design cohort, Studio Gang oversaw the development of a set of design principles intended to outline a unified design concept across the buildings and the public realm in Phase One and subsequent phases of Mission Rock. Studio Gang also led collaborative review sessions of each cohort member’s design progress to ensure that the respective buildings aligned with the set of shared design principles, complemented one another, and supported a public realm and community on par with those of San Francisco’s great neighborhoods.

“Working with Mission Rock Partners and our peers to create a design vision for the neighborhood, and then seeing it come to life with Verde and the rest of Phase One, has been an exciting process. San Francisco is one of our home cities and we’re proud to have helped make real this vibrant new neighborhood,” says Gia Biagi, Principal of Urbanism and Civic Impact at Studio Gang. “We hope that Mission Rock serves as a model for other cities thinking about how to transform underutilized land into great places.”

Verde is Studio Gang’s latest project to complete in San Francisco and will soon be followed by the California College of the Art’s newly unified campus that will open next month. Studio Gang is also designing the new Stanford Sustainability Commons, which will be home to the Stanford Doerr School of Sustainability – Stanford’s first new school in 70 years. Other work in the Bay Area includes the expansion of Kresge College at the University of California at Santa Cruz, which completed in 2023, and MIRA, a residential tower in the heart of San Francisco.