It refers to the common construction design of new, low-rise apartment buildings: four stories of light wood framing over a “podium” built on the ground of a much stronger (i.e. more expensive) material, usually concrete. It’s considered the most cost efficient building style as compared to true high rises which require steel construction per code.
Once you are aware of it, my guess is you’ll see it everywhere.
You can see the podium is a base of concrete and above it is 4 stories of wood framing construction. The black parts are already wrapped but you see the plywood in the top right.
I'm not sure how I feel about that particular building.
I don't like it aesthetically (despite being into most Brutalist architecture.) But that's a matter of taste.
It doesn't integrate into the environment very well. For example, the Pacific ocean is right there, but the design seems to ignore that. They should (IMO, IANAArchitect) have designed it so that more residents had better views, and one of the roof-top lounge things should be facing it (with wind breaks or even windows!) And there should be wind-power turbines on the roof, you have a nearly continuous wind coming off the ocean.
Despite all that, I think it's really instructional to compare that block to the surrounding blocks.
It shows what the Outer Sunset could be. It's downright weird that SF's Western coast is so underdeveloped. (Although I prefer it that way. I grew up here and it's kind of nice that the beach isn't all built up like the Marina district, or even Venice Beach in LA, or the waterfront in Seattle, or really almost anywhere.) Part of it is that SF is relatively young. Most places would have converted the area decades ago.
One thing though: I had a friend who lived at 46th and worked downtown, he moved to Oakland and his commute time was cut in half. There are reasons why the Sunset district is so sleepy. You meet a lot of people here that think the city ends at Twin Peaks.
We would have to build some sort of freeway if the Outer Sunset were to be converted to greater density.
The existing Muni lines would be sufficient to transit a large capacity of the Outer Sunset residents into downtown if they were given signal priority. The recent proposal to create a dedicated 2-3 car Muni subway line which Sunset residents have to transfer into at West Portal station is itself a huge improvement. Studies have shown that a large majority of Muni delays can be explained by the fact that trains share road space with cars that often obstruct them (and increase railway maintenance costs). Surface trains going into the subway make the problem worse, because an effective subway relies on reliable and precise train timings, but surface rail is unpredictable like a car because it shares space with cars.
The building likely doesn't have a roof deck because code and planning make that a very expensive proposition. Due to more recent planning code changes, roof decks under some circumstances count against the number of floors of housing you can build, so a builder is trading off units they can sell with the amenity value of a deck.
Once you are aware of it, my guess is you’ll see it everywhere.