New SFO control tower will have a torch-like air Architects meet myriad requirements but avoid 'lollipop on stick' style

The new air control tower at SFO, to be completed by the end of 2014, will be 221 feet tall. The new air control tower at SFO, to be completed by the end of 2014, will be 221 feet tall. Photo: HNTB Architecture Photo: HNTB Architecture Image 1 of / 9 Caption Close New SFO control tower will have a torch-like air 1 / 9 Back to Gallery

As the new control tower at San Francisco International Airport takes shape during the next two years, keep this simple phrase in mind: Flair follows function.

The end result will be a 221-foot aluminum-clad tower that's narrow at the base but slides out to the east as it rises, as though craning its neck for a view. At the summit an all-glass crown will pull back and pop up, the see-through finale to the show.

It has the makings of a stylized torch amid SFO's low horseshoe of domestic terminals, at least if reality matches the architectural renderings. But the designers and airport officials call the design a pragmatic response to the challenge at hand - squeezing into a narrow site between two terminals while crafting a perch where air traffic controllers can survey every nook and cranny below.

"We worked hard to keep the tower on a diet," said Alejandro Ogata, an architect with HNTB, the tower's design firm. "All the activities need to be at the top of the building, but nobody wanted a lollipop on a stick."

The $102 million project kicks off Thursday with a ceremony that will include Secretary of Transportation Ray LaHood. The clearing of the site between Terminals 1 and 2 will be followed by the construction of a facility that should be completed in the fall of 2014. The Federal Aviation Administration will spend another year installing the navigation control equipment.

As might be expected, a tower of this nature is shaped by a multitude of demands. For starters, the FAA requires that SFO's be strong enough to withstand a magnitude 8 earthquake - larger than the 1906 temblor - and promptly resume operations. But it's not allowed to sway in high winds, lest a traffic controller be hit by airsickness.

The height and the upper floor's precise location are determined by the need to have a clear line of sight to all of the airport's critical runways and gates. Lightning protection cables will radiate down from rooftop antennas.

When the decision was made, for seismic reasons, to replace the current tower, which sits atop a 1950s block of offices at the north end of Terminal 2, SFO had to find a place within its existing buildings to insert a new one. That's not the case at most airports, which have enough land to set the control tower away from the terminals.

The one semi-convenient space proved to be a tight square now used mostly for docking and parking. At the same time, the compact dimensions required that the lower neck of the tower be as narrow as possible, since room was needed for a pair of corridors between Terminals 1 and 2, one for general visitors and one for passengers who already had passed through security.

Working within these constraints - and given a site that will be far more prominent from the Bayshore Freeway than the current control tower - the architects sought to enliven the tower without exceeding the budget set beforehand by the FAA, which will pay $69 million of the cost, with the balance covered by the airport.

The tower is shaped as though the aluminum-clad form unfurls from a central trunk of translucent glass; the trunk faces the traffic ramps inside the horseshoe and will glow at night. The base will be clear glass, an atrium-like space with the aluminum panels of the tower beginning their climb at the rear, another way of accenting the height.

The faux-atrium is where the nonsecure corridor will be, along with plants and seating and public art along the way.

"These projects are civic in nature," Ogata explained. "You want to strike a balance between (employee) safety and openness."

On the south edge of the base will be the most public gesture of all, a concession area to serve people waiting for incoming flights at Terminal 1. It's the first step in a planned upgrade to a structure that was built in the early 1960s and last remodeled in 1988 - more evidence that renovation work at SFO will never, ever truly come to an end.

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