The University of California, San Francisco's (UCSF) Ray and Dagmar Dolby Regeneration Medicine Building won the Center for the Built Environment's (CBE) Livable Building Award.

CBE's Livable Buildings Award recognizes projects that meet the highest standards for providing healthy, productive indoor environments and represent best sustainability practices. It's given to buildings that demonstrate exceptional performance in terms of resource efficiency, overall design and occupant satisfaction using CBE's Occupant Indoor Environmental Quality Survey. Check out the Regeneration Medicine Building's survey scorecard here.

To meet the 24-month design and construction window required by funding, the design-build team of DPR Construction, SmithGroupJJR and Forell/Elsesser Engineers was chosen for the project along with Rafael Viñoly Architects PC as the design architect. With little space available for expansion, the project team was challenged with designing for and building on a narrow, steep and sloped site. Crews had to wear rock climbing gear just to combat the steep slope!

The result is a series of terraced floors expanding horizontally across the site, and includes both indoor and outdoor spaces. Green roof terraces impart environmental benefits and an outdoor amenity for building occupants and campus community. The team used a steel space truss system to maximize usable space below the building, and keep costs low. In addition to advancing the emerging field of stem cell research, the team used building information modeling (BIM) and integrated project delivery (IPD).

Here are just a few things that have been said about the building:

• “The project was constructed by a team working collaboratively and skillfully to craft design solutions to issues that came up in an accelerated implementation schedule. The building was finished on time and on budget, which is a testament to the discipline, skill, and commitment of all who participated. The UCSF community is extremely excited about this new building, and the reception since it opened has been enthusiastic.” - Michael Bade, Assistant Vice Chancellor, UCSF Capital Programs and Campus Architect
• "The essential concept of a collaborative atmosphere is beautifully developed in a unique way from any of our other research buildings. Open interaction spaces, where researchers naturally gather throughout the day, provide visual connectivity from one lab floor to another through the “split-level” design as well as to office/conference suites." - Bonnie Maler, Associate Dean for Research Facilities Planning, UCSF School of Medicine
• "UCSF is a phenomenal design in terms of how they approached the site. It includes beautiful transition from building to nature, and there is a holistic story to building that made it stand out." - CBE Living Building Award jury

Photos courtesy of Bruce Damonte

Congrats to all involved!

Last year's CBE Livable Building Award went to DPR's Clif Bar Headquarters.