Challenge Design-Build Project Delivery Addressed
The University of California, San Francisco (UCSF) chose design-build because of the 24-month timetable for design and construction of their facility. The ultimate plan emulated how UCSF wanted the building to function, feel, and perform while providing the design-build team latitude to be highly creative and meet the cost and schedule challenges. One example of meeting both budget and schedule challenges was the exterior skin system. The glass skin system was prefabricated offsite into 30’ x 12’8” panel frames (one bay wide and one floor tall). These frames were delivered onsite and erected right off the trucks with the project tower crane. It took only three weeks to erect and enclose the entire building envelope. Prefabricating and panelizing the skin saved approximately 15% of the total exterior skin system cost and saved approximately two months on the project schedule.
Summary
Through the 264,000-square-foot Mission Hall: Global Health & Clinical Sciences Building, UCSF wanted to create a new hub for its growing Mission Bay campus. Mission Hall needed to consolidate the location of several departments working in leased spaces throughout San Francisco and forge a link between academic, research and medical sectors. UCSF developed a novel approach to project delivery that centered on a performance and criteria-based design-build competition model. The criteria included an array of aspirational and technical objectives to be delivered within a very limited budget and an intensely challenging 24-month design and construction schedule, which included an intense 10-week design-build competition phase. Success depended on forming a design-build team with a high degree of trust and a shared perspective on collaboration and project delivery. UCSF paid a stipend of $200,000 to all three project teams that participated in the competition phase. UCSF Technical Criteria include: an academic office building that would perform for 50 years and the building needed to be immediately occupied after a seismic event per ASEC41; and a building that would bridge the academic campus with the new medical campus (a shift in UCSF’s master plan).
Design-Build Team
Client/Owner: University of California, San Francisco
Design-Builder: Rudolph and Sletten, Inc.
Architect: WRNS Studio
Engineers: Rutherford + Chekene (Structural), Sherwood Design Group
Specialty Contractors: Walters & Wolf (Exterior Skin), Southland Industries, Cupertino Electric, Partition Specialties
Other Key Professionals: Hogue, McClone Construction, Berkel Construction, Daley’s Drywall, Superior Automatic, McGuire Hester, Harris Salinas Rebar, Andrea Cochran Landscaping
Duration of Construction: 18 months
Project Cost: $101,337,696