UCSF is building a nine-story research and academic complex on its Parnassus Heights campus, the Barbara and Gerson Bakar Research and Academic Building. At 323,000 square feet, it’s one of the larger academic science buildings underway in California, and it’s meant to modernize lab space UCSF has outgrown.
Project Scope
The building holds about 147,000 square feet of reconfigurable research labs, a new home for the UCSF School of Nursing at roughly 23,200 square feet, and an 8,000-square-foot clinical research suite. Snohetta leads the overall building and site design, HGA is executive architect handling the interiors and lab design, and Hensel Phelps is the builder. Reconfigurable lab space is the theme, wet and dry benches that can be reassigned as research priorities shift rather than locked to one discipline.
Why It Matters
Academic medical centers are among the few institutional owners still starting big buildings in a cautious market, and UCSF is one of the most active. Parnassus is a tight, hilly urban campus, so fitting a 323,000-square-foot building onto it is as much a logistics problem as a design one. The bet behind flexible labs is that research changes faster than buildings do, and the ones that can flex hold their value longer.
Project Team & Details
| Owner / Client | University of California, San Francisco |
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| Architect | Snohetta (Design Architect) |
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| Consultants | HGA (Executive Architect / Laboratory Design) |
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| General Contractor | Hensel Phelps |
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| Status | Under Construction |
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| Delivery Method | CMAR |
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| Funding Source | Institutional |
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