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This side of 1RH is so much more attractive than the candy stripes on the other side. I actually like the top of the tower as well. It still reminds me of Irvine circa 1989 though.

543 Howard peeking out in the foreground puts 1RH to shame.

This building is so poorly designed. It is such a missed opportunity. I agree that this view is much better than the others but the color of the glazing and the bright white cladding.... sigh.

My home in the Upper Haight/Buena Vista hood includes good views of downtown and the east bay beyond.

One night a year ago or so as I watched video, my attention was drawn to a bright light on the eastern horizon, slowly rising above the foreground victorian rooftops. Very Bizarre. At first I thought it must be a very stationary police or media helicopter off near the Embarcadero.

But what I was actually seeing was the nigthtime raising of the construction crane at RH1 to keep ahead of the steel erection, and it was finally daylighting into my view.

Now the tower is complete, and from my perspective, alone all by itself well south of other tall buildings. With the skewed South of Market street grid and my viewpoint, the other new tall towers on or near Mission blend into with the older high rises north of Market.

From Potrero Hill it looks like a Sharper Image - Ionic Breeze.

Crave- did you just make that up ??? C- L- E- V- E- R!!! AND fresh..

I was sipping my coffee a few months ago on 20th & Connecticut, looked up & said "hey, that’s my Ionic Breeze".

I love Socketsite. I really do. But sometimes, man! It's like being in a bad dream over and over and over again! Ionic Breeze! Skewed skyline! Blocked view of the Bay Bridge!

Yes, ORH is not the most awe-inspiring building ever. Neither is the Millenium and no, not the Infinity either. Put the Millenium or the Infinity at ORH's location and trust me, they'd be hated too. Really people, it's the dominating location of ORH that irks more than the look itself. Yes, yes, Irvine. I know, I know.

I think it looks great from the ball park--can't wait to see it at night all lit up!

Looks great to me. Especially from this angle and especially compared to the other building in SF.

OMG! Ionic Breeze! That is too funny! I still like this building and think that it will blend in better when the rest of the skyline in RH takes shape.

ORH and the Ionic Breeze have a lot in common. Overpriced and marginally functional.

So have they broken ground on the second tower yet, or what??

Beautiful building. Always enjoy seeing it from the top of Turk street.

If Idiotic Breeze is the worst the haters can come up with, then this really isn't a bad building at all.

I love it! Cant wait for tower 2 to rise.

Socketsite reads like a tabloid or better yet, a tablog.

it sucks. oh, I forgot to mention... it sucks.

Perhaps the good citizens of San Francisco will scorn Tower 2 and the city will be left with no choice but to approve a grand cluster of new high-rises to tower over these two skimpy offerings.

crave did not come up with the ionic breeze reference. People have been calling it the ionic breeze on this site and curbed sf for months and months

If the average San Franciscan hadn't gotten used to a level of stasis that would give rip van winkle a run for his money, then maybe these new developments would stand a chance in the court of public opinion. Instead, theres a huge portion of this city that has come to expect nothing to ever change - and even some who have made their livings making sure things never change (rhymes with flu tester)
I welcome the change, and with it the new blood. Funny how the myriad protections SF has enacted have only served to further ossify the city's culture.

543 Howard peeking out in the foreground puts 1RH to shame.

And how much are those units again?

Everyone I know calls this the Ionic Breeze Tower ... and we hate it ... I haven't seen this view before tho ... and it's MUCH better than the other side. Too bad they didn't just do that all the way around ... at least the circular top and all the horizontal lines break up the boredom. Note to designers: when you build a building that is way out of character with the neighborhood height wise, maybe not such a good idea to have all those vertical white stripes that make it look even taller. Just a thought.

One final thought -- who the F*** designed this thing? How does this side relate to the even uglier other side? It doesn't even look like the same building. Worst. Architecture. Ever.

On a somewhat related note, why do no new buildings in SF include window coverings? If you think this is odd looking now, wait till people move in and there's a patchwork of shades/roman blinds/drapes/screens, etc. In Vancouver window coverings are standard on all new buildings and having a consistent look through the building makes it look much better.

from the ballpark?it looks absolutely obnoxious when you are sitting along first base- it rises up out of nowhere with the lights above third base.

"when you build a building that is way out of character with the neighborhood height wise"

I agree, they should have built a 65 story victorian.

Wow, I must be the only one that likes the "candy stripe" side better.

regarding the white stripes, is it a structural or an architectural feature?

The comparison to the Sharper Image air purifier was made months ago:

http://telstarlogistics.typepad.com/telstarlogistics/2007/07/separated-at-bi.html

The Sharper Image definitely looks better.

The color is wrong. If they used some darker color (some mix of blue and gray), like the air purifier, it would look much better.

I love the building but I do think it would have been better if the white parts were a warm metallic color such as titanium.

"I agree, they should have built a 65 story victorian."

ROFL!!!! that made my day. Imagine 65 stories of bay windows!

"Wow, I must be the only one that likes the "candy stripe" side better."

yeah... you are!

it's not just the candy striping, it's how WHITE it is. My god, I looked at it on a sunny day, and now I need new retinas!

There it is in living colot.
Speculators giving the middle finger to The City.

Strange. Chicago is building a 150 story condo tower (The 40 million dollar penthouse already sold to Chicagoan Ken Griffin btw), and nobody there seems to care. I asked a driver to take me to the construction site so I could see it and he had not even heard about the building, which is called the Chicago Spire. Chicagoans are so used to growth and change that it has become part of their dynamic urban enviroment. We need to stop worrying about one lonely tower of condos and whether or not it is pretty. If 1RH were part of a true urban skyline, it would just be another tower, instead of such a source of hate.

Amen anonfedup!! SF's cbd should be twice as big and tall by now. Everytime I drive west on the Bay Bridge I imagine wish there were tall towers stretching south all the way into Mission Bay. I feel like I have stayed in San Francisco so long based on what I think it can/will become rather than for what it is now.

No one in Chicago knows about the Spire? LOL LOL LOL LOL LOL LOL LOL LOL LOL LOL LOL LOL LOL LOL LOL

EVERY time I talk to ANYONE from Chicago they make sure and bring up the Spire. Last month I was travelling through the airport and heard an announcement about "Chicago, home of the Chicago Spire"

Now, I agree with your other points - but to make it seem that Chicago "couldn't care less" about their new 150 story building is absolutely ridiculous.

Wow! The Chicago Spire is a beautiful building. Imagine it at the site of One Rincon. Shoot, even though I love The Infinity, The Spire is a BEAUTY of a building. Puts both to shame.

Wish SF would focus more on these buildings instead of Soma Bland, One Rincon etc...

Mr. Checker, that city has currently under construction more residential towers greater than 50 stories than we have in all of California. The Trump Building (90 stories) is going up near to the Aqua which is about 90 stories, next to the 93 story Mandarin, and so on and so on. Go to any architecture blog to realize how fast that city is changing and how slow change is here in San Francisco. Check out the websites of some of their new residential towers. We have nothing to compete with design wise. Our buildings look like they are from 30 years ago. The Chicago Spire website alone should give pause to how "cutting edge" One Rincon is claimed to be. Every single unit in that tower has its own individual unique floorplan. The Penthouse of the structure is a residents only meditation-observation space. I hope to be invited up there in 2010.

I just love these threads concerning RH1, Infinity, etc.

The repeated frustrations expressed here actually give me some hope. I can envision a blanket of SocketSite Tipsters covering Market Street, protesting to have Santiago Calatrava removed from the supe's (and other city watch dog's) Archi-Terrorist watch list.

:)