CultureNOW - Smith Cardiovascular Research Building: The Smith Group, Jim Jennings Architecture and Andrea Cochran Landscape Architecture

Smith Cardiovascular Research Building

Architect
The Smith Group

Associate Architect
Jim Jennings Architecture

Landscape Architect
Andrea Cochran Landscape Architecture

Dates

Constructed, 2012

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Description

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This LEED Gold project consists of a state-of-the-art, 140,000 square foot laboratory research building, a one acre, central courtyard, and campus entry plaza. A key priority in the landscape design is to create a courtyard that fosters interaction amongst scientists. Evoking the site’s historic salt marsh ecology, the design for the courtyard incorporates native grasses to filter and absorb stormwater runoff. The planting breaks down the plaza’s scale, buffering winds from the nearby bay and defining areas for group meetings, informal recreation, lounging and more intimate seating. Eddies off the main walkways are furnished with tables and chairs to encourage interaction with the larger campus community. In addition to the courtyard, ACLA developed a new, bold entrance to the campus to welcome visitors from downtown and Mission Bay with an allee of palm trees, seating, and lights. A twenty-foot limestone pillar announces entry into the campus.

The tranquil courtyard belies the intense subsurface conditions that make the project function. A dense fabric of subsurface pipes runs through the site, delivering steam and chilled water to the University researchers. The landscape team coordinated the design around existing pipes and helped locate new pipes, along with their associated vents and access vaults. Existing bay mud fill soils of the site were a mixture of surcharged areas to hold the weight and those in original condition, which were expected to settle between three inches to a foot over the life of the project. Complicated hinge slabs that connect to the building entrances and landscape materials that can be replenished help mitigate these conditions and the safety issues that may arise from the settlement. Additionally, the entire courtyard sits on top of a reservoir of permeable base rock, designed to filter and hold the stormwater runoff before releasing it into the city storm sewer system. No stormwater infiltration on site is possible due to the site’s contaminated soils and impermeable mud. The team developed an innovative system of custom permeable paving to deliver water to this invisible detention basin.

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Location

University of California, San Francisco
555 Mission Bay Boulevard South
San Francisco, CA 94158
United States

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