Newsbreak
Medical center at Mission Bay aims to create a healing environment, both inside and outside
By Lisa Cisneros
From designing therapeutic gardens for its terrace rooftops to using recycled water to irrigate its landscaped public plazas, UCSF Medical Center at Mission Bay plans to take healing to a whole new level.
The energy center at UCSF Mission Bay will feature a public display of energy consumption and conservation.
UCSF is incorporating the hospital industry’s best standards in environmental sustainability and green design – both inside and outside the buildings – to benefit all.
A central feature of the new hospital facilities will be the integration of green practices and sustainable design elements. Each of the hospitals will be certified by the US Green Building Council’s Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED), the leading industry standard for what constitutes a green building, explains Cindy Lima, executive director of administration at UCSF Medical Center, who oversees the project.
“Environmental health and reducing our carbon footprint have been a given in our planning,” Lima says. “We seek to be one of the greenest health complexes in the world. Our goal is to achieve a LEED gold rating, which is very ambitious for a hospital.”
Indeed, key elements of sustainability for UCSF Medical Center at Mission Bay include:
- Reducing energy consumption by half;
- Saving 2 to 4 million gallons of drinkable water per year through the site irrigation plan;
- Screening materials in patient and exam rooms to reduce most known toxins;
- Bringing 100 percent fresh air and extensive natural light into the interiors; and
- Conserving water in the amount of 2 million to 4 million gallons per year and retaining 75 percent of rainwater for irrigation.
The hospital complex will include an energy center, a 40-foot-high, two-story structure that will feature a glass wall displaying a dashboard of consumption and performance that shows real-time energy savings to the public.
Menu of Opportunities
To plan for the new medical center at Mission Bay, UCSF formed internal user group teams representing a cross-section of representatives from the clinical enterprise. The teams have developed schematic designs for each part of the hospital complex, working directly with the building architects and designers.
Lima points out that the teams have identified a menu of other opportunities that they hope will be attractive to environmentally minded philanthropists. One idea is to install photovoltaic panels on the rooftops to reduce carbon dioxide emissions by 320 tons per year.
The medical center’s interior design team also is incorporating findings from a body of research known as evidence-based design, which demonstrates an important link between the physical environment and key quality and patient safety outcomes that positively affect healing, health, safety and well-being.
For example, research shows that hospitals can speed the recovery and healing process in facilities that offer more natural light, reduced noise, access to views and nature, and visual and physical access to gardens, outdoor space and artworks. Of course, these features are pleasing to the faculty, staff and family members as well.
Outside, 100,000 square feet of landscaping surrounding the hospital complex will be among the most extensive of any urban medical center in the nation, fostering interaction among campus and community members. In addition, UCSF is pursuing the creation of a vehicle-free plaza at the center of 4th Street to create a welcoming environment.
UCSF will make every effort to apply the green building design guidelines in the University of California Policy on Sustainable Practices. The medical center at Mission Bay stands to be UCSF’s first full-scale project that proves its commitment to planet-friendly policies and practices, a movement that is being championed through the recently formed Chancellor’s Advisory Committee on Sustainability.
In fact, UCSF Medical Center at Mission Bay is aiming to become the first hospital in California to achieve gold certification, the second highest rating from the US Green Building Council’s LEED. Worldwide, fewer than 10 hospitals have achieved LEED certification at any level, and only two have achieved ratings of gold and platinum, the highest rating.
UCSF Medical Center at Mission Bay is one of only six medical centers under development in California that are planning for LEED certification, and it will be one of the largest LEED-certified hospital complexes in the world. The actual LEED certification level of the new hospital complex will be determined as plans become finalized and will depend on whether UCSF can attract the support of the philanthropic community and grant funding to help implement creative, eco-effective features.
“We recruited the best we could find to design and lead the delivery of this project,” says Mark Laret, chief executive officer of UCSF Medical Center. “Our architects are San Francisco-based Anshen + Allen, the largest architectural firm in the world dedicated to health care. They are joined by William McDonough + Partners, the leading company internationally in the area of sustainable design and eco-efficiency.”
“This is the first medical center to be designed using a framework based on emulating the safe, regenerative productivity of nature to create an environment that is sustaining, not just sustainable,” says David Johnson, an architect and West Coast director of William McDonough + Partners. “The scale of the project and its comprehensive, principled approach to sustainable design and patient care will make it a model for health care organizations worldwide.”