When it opens in February 2015, the 289-bed, 878,000-gross-square-foot UCSF Medical Center at Mission Bay will set a new standard for patient- and family-centered health care, safety, sustainability and translational medicine. It will speed the application of laboratory discoveries to the treatment of patients in the Bay Area and beyond, furthering UCSF’s mission of advancing health worldwide.

Right now, years before the doors to the state-of-the-art children’s, women’s specialty, and cancer hospital complex open, a team of dedicated men and women is setting a standard for collaborative hospital design and construction. This team, working together in the Integrated Center for Design and Construction (ICDC), is reducing risks and costs on the $1.5 billion hospital project while maximizing design innovation and construction productivity. The ICDC is the hub for a new and innovative method for design and construction: Integrated Project Delivery (IPD).

The Integrated Center for Design and Construction (ICDC)

The Integrated Center for Design and Construction (ICDC) began operations in May 2009. More than 100 architects, engineers and contractors are working side-by-side in the 12,000-square-foot command center at 16th and 4th Streets in San Francisco, California, to make UCSF Medical Center at Mission Bay a reality. This forward-thinking, multi-company collaboration is taking the practice of Integrated Project Delivery (IPD) to a new level of performance for University of California construction. This collaboration has team members representing:

• UCSF project management staff
• Anshen + Allen, part of Stantec Architecture, and their engineering consultants
• Cambridge CM, Inc., project management consultants
• DPR Construction, Inc., general contractor
• 17 subcontractors (including mechanical, electrical and plumbing subcontractors)

Integrated Project Delivery (IPD)

IPD is a project delivery method that integrates people, systems, business structures and practices into a process that collaboratively harnesses the talents and insights of all participants to optimize project results, increase value to the owner, reduce waste, and maximize efficiency through all phases of design, fabrication, and construction.*

Inside the ICDC, the team is virtually building the medical center as it will be built when actual bricks-and-mortar construction begins. They are creating a digital 3-D model of the 878,000-square-foot hospital complex using Building Information Modeling (BIM) software. This group of experts is using shared resources and constant interaction to generate construction documents that are as flawless as possible.

* Definition of “Integrated Project Delivery” excerpted from Integrated Project Delivery: A Guide, November 2007. Reproduced with permission from The AIA California Council and The American Institute of Architects, 1735 New York Avenue, NW, Washington, D.C. 20006.

How Mission Bay will Benefit

UCSF is engaging in a most comprehensive collaborative hospital design-and-construction process, because we believe it is the most efficient and cost-effective way to meet the unique challenges of building a 21st century hospital in California.

Hospitals are highly technical buildings that require complex and adaptable infrastructures to accommodate ever-evolving equipment and emerging technologies. They must support a spectrum of clinical demands from medical gases and filtered air to infection control and radiation safety. Hospitals are heavily used buildings, operating 24 hours, seven days a week under high performance and emergency operations standards. California’s unique seismic regulations for hospitals add another layer of complexity that translates into additional time and expense. California hospitals must be built to be about 50 percent stronger than office buildings – from the foundations and steel structures to extensive bracing of pipes and equipment. Meeting these Office of Statewide Health Planning and Development (OSHPD) standards requires uniquely detailed construction documents, exhaustive reviews by OSHPD, and extensive inspections and testing during construction. The ICDC is organized and staffed to meet these special challenges while satisfying the project scope, schedule and budget goals.

This innovative IPD process, in which all disciplines and trades are integrated in a “big room,” encourages quick and collaborative decisions, and reduces the amount of time required to solve problems. By resolving conflicts between the various building systems during the design phase in the ICDC, UCSF is minimizing the risk of costly changes during construction, which are more expensive and often lead to delays. Additionally, use of BIM enables modeling to support decision making as design progresses. This means fewer redesigns, less unnecessary costs and a reduction in the schedule.