Strange as this might sound, convention centers have a lot in common with hospitals. They’re designed from the inside out, driven by the quest for efficient functionality above all else.
So when a convention facility also tries to be urbane, as with San Francisco’s Moscone Center, you can’t help but applaud — even when the strain of being neighborly yet enormous is hard to miss.
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“It’s an interesting building type because they’re very public — people see them and visit them in every city — but there are very specific requirements,” said Mark Schwettmann, a design director at Skidmore Owings & Merrill, which designed the expansion in collaboration with Mark Cavagnero Associates.