Visa’s global HQ in Mission Rock by Henning Larsen nears completion

Approaching completion in 2023, Visa’s global HQ in Mission Rock, San Francisco enters the final stages of construction. Transforming 28 acres of San Francisco’s southern waterfront, Mission Rock is a new neighborhood for the city.

Former industrial land is revived as home to a residential community, innovative workplaces, local producers, makers and creators, shops and cafes and social amenities.

Image © Henning Larsen

The first of four buildings in phase one of the Mission Rock masterplan, the Visa Building will establish the neighborhood as a new place to work, play, and live.

The new masterplan at Mission Rock takes on a lofty goal: to nurture a new urban community in an already thriving city. Located on the eastern edge of the city where San Francisco borders the bay, the area is an oddity in San Francisco.

Image © Henning Larsen

The flat site in the famously hilly city presented an opportunity to look at the geography as a catalyst for community. Or, put simply: what could the city learn from nature?

San Francisco’s steep streets may be a challenge for cyclists and pedestrians, but the extreme geography also creates unique outlooks onto the city from a range of levels, be they from the bottom of Market Street or the top of Twin Peaks.

Image © Henning Larsen

We looked to translate some of that dynamism into our design for Building G, Mission Rock’s Keystone plot. The building’s outermost layer – the layer inhabited by ground-level shops and cafes – peels back a few levels up to create a clear distinction between the public and office spaces.

Terraced platforms that coil around the building’s edge provide outdoor outlooks for the offices, close enough to be connected with the activity below but distinct enough that it remains private. The winding terraces create a façade as varied as the city it lives in, as open in space as the city is in mind.

Image © Henning Larsen

Even before breaking ground, this community-oriented strategy is working. In early November, Visa announced a lease agreement on Building G – making it their global and North American HQ.

Visa’s CEO and Chairman Al Kelly referenced the building’s collaborative workplaces and community emphasis in selecting it as the global company’s new headquarters. Source by Henning Larsen.

Photo © GAFFER

Photo © GAFFER

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