earth science

One Rincon Hill

One Rincon Hill is a earth science topic covered in the lgStudy science library. This page brings together a partial reference excerpt, illustrations, worked examples, real-world applications and a short study plan, so you can understand One Rincon Hill rather than just read about it. In short: One Rincon Hill is an upscale residential complex on the apex of Rincon Hill in San Francisco, California, United States. The complex, designed by Solomon, Cordwell, Buenz and Associates and developed by Urban West Associates, consists of two skyscrapers that share a common townhouse podium.

Key takeaways

One Rincon Hill belongs to earth science; place it in that map before memorising details.
Learn the definition first, then one example that makes the definition concrete.
Connect One Rincon Hill to a quantity you can measure, compute or draw — that is where exam questions come from.
Reproduce the core statement of One Rincon Hill from memory before moving on to harder problems.

Reference excerpt

One Rincon Hill is an upscale residential complex on the apex of Rincon Hill in San Francisco, California, United States. The complex, designed by Solomon, Cordwell, Buenz and Associates and developed by Urban West Associates, consists of two skyscrapers that share a common townhouse podium. It is part of the San Francisco skyline and is visible from several parts of the Bay Area. The taller tower, One Rincon Hill South Tower, was completed in 2008 and stands 60 stories and 641 feet (195 m) tall.[A][B] The shorter tower, marketed as Tower Two at One Rincon Hill, was completed in 2014 and reaches a height of 541 feet (165 m) with 50 stories.[A] The South Tower contains high-speed elevators with special features for moving residents effectively, and a large water tank designed to help the skyscraper withstand strong winds and earthquakes. Both skyscrapers and the townhomes contain a total of 709 residential units. The building site, located right next to the western approach of the San Francisco–Oakland Bay Bridge, formerly contained a clock tower. The clock tower was demolished shortly after the city approved the One Rincon Hill project. Construction of the townhomes and the South Tower lasted from 2005 to 2008, but was stopped for brief periods of time due to seismic concerns and a construction accident. As the South Tower neared completion, it generated controversy concerning view encroachment, high pricing, and architectural style.

Description

Location The complex is on a 1.3 acres (0.53 ha) parcel on the apex of the Rincon Hill neighborhood. The site is bounded by Harrison Street to the northwest, the Fremont Street exit ramp to the north, the approach to the Bay Bridge (Interstate 80) on the east, and the 1st Street entrance ramp to the southwest.

Developer and architect Solomon, Cordwell, Buenz and Associates, a Chicago architectural firm, designed the complex. The developer of this complex is Urban West Associates, headed by Mike Kriozere. The developer's headquarters are in San Diego, although all its highrise projects over 14 stories are in the San Francisco Bay Area. The Rincon Hill complex is the developer's second project in San Francisco, with the first being ONE Embarcadero South, a residential complex near One Rincon Hill and across from Oracle Park. According to the developer the total cost of the Rincon Hill project was US$290 million, rising to over US$310 million in 2009.

Architecture

The complex consists of two buildings joined at the base by a row of townhomes. The South Tower and North Tower rise 641 and 541 ft (195 and 165 m) above the corner of Fremont and Harrison streets, respectively.[A][B] The North Tower has 50 floors, while the South Tower has 60.[A][B] Because of the sloped Rincon Hill site, the South Tower's lobby floor or the 1st Street entrance is on the sixth floor, and the first floor is five levels underground from the 1st Street entrance. It is also one of the tallest all-residential towers west of the Mississippi River. Its location near the apex of Rincon Hill, at an elevation of over 100 feet (30 m), gives it an apparent height of well over 700 feet (210 m), making it one of the biggest additions to the San Francisco skyline in over 30 years. Both the north tower and the south tower of the Rincon Hill complex bear a resemblance to The Heritage at Millennium Park in Chicago, a building of a similar height to the south tower also designed by Solomon, Cordwell, Buenz and Associates. The architectural style for both buildings of the Rincon Hill complex is late-modernist. The three sides of the South Tower facing east, north, and west have a linear glass curtainwall. The North Tower has a similar design, except it is shorter and the curved aluminum and glass side faces northwest. Both skyscrapers of the Rincon Hill project contain an oval-shaped crown housing mechanical equipment.

Weather beacon The crown of the South Tower contains a band of 25 LED floodlights that remain lit all night. Each LED light consumes little energy and has a lifetime of 40,000 hours. These lights are used to signal the weather, just like the lights on the Berkeley Building in Boston. The crown glows red if warmer weather is in the forecast. A blue crown signifies that cold weather is expected soon. Green means that there is at least a 50 percent chance of rain. Amber indicates that the weather will remain unchanged. This is the San Francisco Bay Area's first weather beacon. The crown began lighting up on December 8, 2008.

Earthquake engineering To support the 60 story condo tower, One Rincon Hill South Tower has a massive 4-metre (13 ft) thick pile-raft foundation embedded deep into serpentine rock. Although some engineers view serpentine rock with suspicion, there are massive structures, such as the Golden Gate Bridge, that have foundations on rock that is largely serpentine. Rising out of the foundation are the concrete core and large, tall columns of steel-reinforced concrete called outriggers. The core is attached to the outrigger columns by diagonal, steel buckling-restrained braces which are designed to dissipate energy during an earthquake through controlled hysteretic behavior. This type of advanced seismic system performs in a manner similar to that of shock absorbers. The braces are also encased in concrete and steel to further mitigate risk of buckling and strength loss. Also of note is the controlled-rocking system which features vertical post-tensioning which runs the height of the building through ducts within the reinforced-concrete shear-wall core. Many of these technologies used in the One Rincon Hill South Tower have never before been applied in the United States.

Water tanks At the top of the building is a large tuned sloshing damper which holds up to 50,000 gallons (189,250 litres) of water and weighs 416,500 pounds (185,440 kg). A similar 50,000 U.S. gallons (190,000 liters) tank is located in the basement for firefighting purposes. There are two liquid damper screens in each tank to control the flow of the water to counter the sway from the powerful Pacific winds, which can reach hurricane-force.

… excerpt ends here. Continue reading the full article.

Illustrations

Worked examples

Example 1 — a first encounter with One Rincon Hill

Start with the simplest possible case. Write down what One Rincon Hill claims or describes in one sentence, then invent the smallest concrete situation in which that sentence is true. In earth science, the smallest case is usually a single object, a single equation or a single measurement. Check that every symbol or term in your sentence has a meaning in that case.

Example 2 — changing one variable

Take the situation from Example 1 and change exactly one quantity: double it, halve it, or set it to zero. Predict what should happen to One Rincon Hill before you calculate. Comparing your prediction with the result is the fastest way to find out whether you understand the idea or only the words.

Example 3 — an exam-style question

Typical questions about One Rincon Hill ask you to (a) state it precisely, (b) apply it to given data, and (c) explain a limitation. Practise writing all three answers in under five minutes; the third part is what separates a full-mark answer from an average one.

Applications of One Rincon Hill

In research: One Rincon Hill appears in earth science research whenever the underlying quantities have to be modelled precisely. Papers usually cite it as a starting assumption and then explore where it breaks down.
In technology and industry: Engineering practice reuses One Rincon Hill in design rules, simulations and safety margins. Knowing the idea lets you read a specification sheet and understand why the numbers look the way they do.
In the classroom: One Rincon Hill is common in secondary-school and first-year university syllabi. It links to neighbouring topics 2008 in San Francisco, 2014 establishments in California, Earthquake-resistant structures, so understanding it makes those chapters shorter.
In everyday life: Look for One Rincon Hill outside the textbook — in sport, cooking, traffic, electronics or the sky above you. An example you found yourself is remembered far longer than one you were given.

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How to study One Rincon Hill in 20 minutes

Read the reference excerpt below once, without taking notes.
Close the page and write down what One Rincon Hill means in your own words.
Compare your version with the excerpt and mark what you missed.
Work through the three examples above with pen and paper.
Explain One Rincon Hill out loud to somebody else — or to Teacher Smith in the lgStudy chat.

Frequently asked questions

What is One Rincon Hill in simple terms?

Why does One Rincon Hill matter?

Because it connects several earth science ideas at once: it gives you a definition you can apply, a quantity you can calculate, and a way to check whether a result is plausible.

How should I study One Rincon Hill?

Read the excerpt, restate it from memory, then work through the examples and applications listed on this page. The five-step study plan above takes about twenty minutes.

What does this page cover?

It gives you a compact reference excerpt plus original lgStudy explanations, examples, applications and study material on One Rincon Hill.