New Thom Mayne Building Asserts Eco-Idealism

"Architect Thom Mayne has covered the 18-story south side of the San Francisco Federal Building with perforated metal panels. It's an armor that evokes Baghdad's Green Zone more than the California city's soft, fogged hills. Yet behind the bristling facade of this slim, $144-million slab lurks flower-power idealism. It's a building that addresses the growing concerns of global warming.

Mayne, principal of Santa Monica-based Morphosis, bracingly applies brute urban-industrial energy to his environmental agenda. The 3-foot-by-8-foot stainless-steel panels, which appear translucent, are supported in front of the all-glass building wall by a metal framework. Functionally, they shade the building from low winter sun, cutting daylight to a comfortable level for office workers.

That's just one of the ways the building cuts energy use. In total, it's designed to consume about half the power of a standard office tower -- an indication of how building design can help slash emissions of greenhouse gases.

Stylistically, Mayne has gone post-apocalyptic. The blanket of metal panels angles up over the roof and folds down at a slightly crazed angle to make a jaunty hat tipped to the city. Then it plunges down the south side, and undulates like a stock- market graph to shade a public plaza and the skylight-dotted roof of a child-care center."