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Hospitality + Residential Architecture

Pickard Chilton brings the highest standards to the design of multi-family residences and hotels. Our dynamic and agile teamis able to create world-class destinations with the latest in amenity, concierge and recreational services.

530 Howard Street, a proposed residential tower in San Francisco

Rising 840 feet (255 meters) from San Francisco’s SoMA neighborhood, 530 Howard is a residential tower designed to complement the city’s skyline while maximizing views to San Francisco Bay. The transit-oriented development incorporates a fifth-floor pedestrian bridge directly connecting to the 5.4-acre Salesforce Park and the Salesforce Transit Center. The tower will be taller than any existing apartment building in the city, and will be the third tallest in the city.

Clad in an elegant, sleek enclosure, the tower will offer residents sustainable year-round comfort. With a competitive 30,000 square foot (2,800 m2) amenity program, residents will have access to a wellness and fitness center, a co-working center, a lounge, and other spaces to support downtown living. Parking is provided for both cars and bicycles.

In alignment with the city’s goal of bringing residents back downtown, the tower maximizes the state’s Density Bonus to increase the buildable area to deliver a mix of one, two and three bedroom units for a total of 672 new rental apartments while also providing 67 units at below market rate. The existing site is currently home to a parking lot and a four-story office building.

Proposed entry to 1633 Broadway, a multi-family development

Pickard Chilton was recently named a finalist for Metals in Construction magazine’s international design competition.

For the 2023 edition of its popular annual design competition, the magazine invited participants to explore the conversion of a large outdated commercial office tower to an innovative residential use. The aim was to address and draw attention to the concurrent trends that office vacancy rates are at an all-time high and that the environmental carbon impact of the construction industry is appropriately being further scrutinized.

As its subject tower, the brief identified a 1970’s New York City office building, the Paramount Plaza, located at 1633 Broadway in the heart of Midtown Manhattan. The brief contemplated the reconfiguration of the large office floor plates to residential units as well as a reimagined and enhanced ground-level experience which would consist of various retail spaces, a large public plaza, and two existing Broadway theaters: The Gershwin and the Circle in The Square.

Transforming the tower program from commercial to residential presented the unique opportunity to consolidate and reduce the footprint of the building’s core infrastructure. However, daylight analysis of the resulting floor plan demonstrated the primary challenge: the center of the tower receives inadequate natural daylight for residential use. In addition, the significant lease depths of the existing commercial floor plan created challenges to providing market-appropriate unit layouts.

To resolve these issues, floor plates were strategically carved to allow ample natural daylight to reach the center of the building and the enclosure wall was offset from the perimeter of the floor. The resulting floor layout provides the unprecedented and unique opportunity for every unit to have a spacious exterior balcony, or their own “urban back porch”. 

After examining numerous options for the best use of the center of floor plate, the final design proposed “The Hub,” an amenities-rich experience that rises through the new core of the entire tower to create a vibrant social spine for the building’s residential community.

With more publicly-oriented spaces and amenities located within the podium, specific fee-based venues and activities can be opened to the greater public to provide nominal income opportunities to offset potential rent increases for building residents.

Furthermore, the dramatic post-Covid work-from-home shift has significantly impacted both workplace and home environments. As such, the tower’s new residences are generous, allowing ample space for families to feel comfortable yet have rooms that can serve as private work areas.

At the ground level, direct access to the subway system below is celebrated and announced with a series of large glass doors that open, eliminating the boundary between the plaza and the dynamic space within. Access to the subway, a grocery store, a community center, and other public amenities activate the site and continuously draw in visitors. Lastly, The Gershwin and Circle in The Square theaters are enhanced, bringing additional excitement to the block and district. Their entrances are accentuated with new entrance canopies to attract and welcome the public.

The design proposal for Avocet Tower, a transit-oriented development project designed with an enhanced shading system.

Avocet Tower is a new mixed-use, transit-oriented development, comprising nearly 400,000 gsf of class-A office space, a 220-key hotel, above- and below-grade parking.

Master planned on a 20-acre site on the South Side of downtown Dallas, Newpark Dallas has been envisioned as a transformative and sustainable mixed-use development that will imbue in the heart of Dallas a renewed vitality and a collection of welcoming pedestrian-oriented spaces. 

The Rosslyn Plaza master plan envisions the development of a mixed-use complex comprising three new office towers and two residential towers.

Kingdom Tower is the landmark centerpiece of Kingdom City, one of the largest and most comprehensive real estate developments to be built in Saudi Arabia.

The high-performance low-E glass curtain walls of Four Seasons place, located in Kuala Lumpur Malaysia.

Four Seasons Place brings luxurious residences and hotel accommodations to the heart of Kuala Lumpur.

Design proposal for Dubai’s prestigious waterfront precinct, The Atrium with glass facades for light-filled interiors.

The Atrium are luxury residences designed for Dubai’s prestigious waterfront precinct creating a symbolic gateway as the two towers merge at the 47th floor.

The glass frame wall design of the Confidential luxury hotel, the thirty-two storey luxury hotel, located in Abu Dhabi.

Abu Dhabi Luxury Hotel is a thirty-three-story luxury hotel and residential tower with commanding views of the island, sea, and city at the heart of Abu Dhabi’s new financial center.

The W Atlanta-Downtown and The Residences building with 236 hotel rooms and 83 residences, located in Atlanta, Georgia.

W Atlanta-Downtown in Allen Plaza attests to the vibrant resurgence of Atlanta as it adds 236 hotel rooms and 83 residences to the rich program of urban activity

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