The Civic Center is San Francisco’s most dignified architectural precinct, a collection of gracefully proportioned and elegantly detailed Beaux Arts Buildings, all in grey Sierra granite, surrounding an open green square. Each of these civic institutions is finely composed and articulated with rusticated bases, columnar facades, and significant central organizing elements, the most exceptional being the tall dome of city hall with its elaborate grand stair, surrounded by tiers of colonnaded walkways within. It is this magnificent space, the heart of the city, that is the inspiration for our project. The site is the remainder of the block occupied by the Department of Public Health bounded by Grove, Van Ness and Tom Waddell Place, across from City Hall on the North and Davies Symphony Hall on the west. The program for the building is mixed use, with a small performance venue and large restaurant on the ground floor, and residences above. The building is structured around a central circular open void, the required rear yard, an empty and opposite space to City Hall’s domed center. At street level this hole becomes a public plaza with walkways to the units wrapping it above, all open to the sky. The lobby to the units is entered from this void. The exterior of the building is a colonnaded grid work of poured in place concrete structure faced with precast planks matching the Beaux Arts Buildings in color and texture and height. The base is rusticated to match the Department of Public Health Building it abuts, with a three story giant order of columns transforming into a middle and ending in a hovering cornice. Above an airy penthouse floats away from the perimeter walls forming a top to match the mansards and roofs around it. At the corners, like the corners of the neighbors, an echoing dissolution accents the junction of the two orthogonal planes. While the elements are the same as the Beaux Arts buildings, there is a shift from punched openings to more glass than wall which becomes a frame. Vertical rows of recessed balconies further articulate the skin to establish a richness compatible with the ornament and depth of the neighboring colonnaded building walls. Below grade parking is accessed from Tom Waddell Place. The units above the public and semi-public street level activities are a variety of types and range of sizes, including penthouses with rooftop decks above the cornice. The building completes the current break in civic architecture on the corner, occupying empty lots and replacing out of context buildings. Although the functions within are private, the street level and architecture expand the civic language of this unique area in the city.