Design To Heal

UCSF Medical Center at Mission Bay,
San Francisco, California

William McDonough + Partners collaborated on the UCSF Medical Center complex at Mission Bay — the first hospital built from the ground up in San Francisco in several decades. This large complex project with an 8-year design-to-open-door life was brought in on time and on budget.

The design challenge was to balance identity with the cost efficiency of shared services in construction, operational and staffing costs. Each center of excellence is separate, but shares a platform of support services and diagnostic treatment spaces arranged along a main spine. A kaleidoscope of color of dichroic glass enlivens the building’s surface and entry to the Benioff Children’s Hospital. The women’s and cancer centers have separate entrances. Sky lobbies allow families outdoor access on patient floors, while over six acres of gardens on terraces make it a hospitable place connected to the natural environment at every opportunity.

The project supports new ways to advance health and contributes to the healing process by providing abundant connections to nature and integrating the latest research in evidence-based design with the leading edge of sustainability practices. The extensive green roofs and healing gardens across the hospital complex are among the most of any urban U.S. hospital.