The raw steel appearance of the "Grand Central Station of the West" is starting to become obscured by striking new aluminum paneling. The Transbay Transit Center in San Francisco is one of the largest building and transit projects underway in the United States, as it pieces together 11 transit systems: AC Transit, BART, Caltrain, Golden Gate Transit, Greyhound, Muni, SamTrans, WestCAT Lynx, Amtrak, Paratransit and a future high speed rail link to Los Angeles/Anaheim. The giant transit hub replaces the Transbay Terminal at First and Mission Streets that was demolished in 2010.

The Transbay Transit Center under construction, image by Brianne Benness

The five-storey terminal will include an above-ground bus level, two below-grade rail levels, and a ramp connecting to a new bus storage facility and the San Francisco-Oakland Bay Bridge. Designed by the prestigious Pelli Clarke Pelli Architects, the building is topped by a public amenity in the form of a 5.4-acre park. It will also be surrounded by massive residential and office projects, like the under-construction Salesforce Tower, with the value of the land they sit on already captured to help finance the transformative development. 

The Transbay Transit Center's newly-installed skin, image by Brianne Benness

Recent photos from the site show a porous aluminum skin beginning to coat the web of steel frames and nodes. The undulating white filigree partially masks the complicated innards of the steel structure, but the skin maintains enough transparency for passersby to understand the intense engineering involved in the project. While the facade was originally intended to be composed of glass — a scheme axed to save money — the skin's doily-like design brings a dose of futurism to the South of Market neighbourhood. 

The Transbay Transit Center's newly installed skin, image by Brianne Benness

Additional images depict the signature light column that spans the height of the structure. Sunlight will enter through the cylindrical column from the top and illuminate the terminal's lower levels. When completed in 2017, the facility will serve more than 100,000 passengers each weekday, adding up to 45 million people every year. 

The Transbay Transit Center's lightwell, image by Brianne Benness

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