New plan will preserve historic San Francisco General Hospital

After numerous failed attempts, architects have come up a plan to build a new hospital facility on the land-locked San Francisco General Hospital campus without demolishing any parts of the existing facility. Local firm Anshen+Allen has come up with what it calls a “super-floor,” which will be a massive basement beneath the new, 90-foot-high hospital. By placing a substantial portion of the new hospital underground, the team will be able to bypass a state law that requires all new structures to be sited at least 40 feet apart from existing structures to ensure seismic safety; the below-grade structure can extend to the edges of the surrounding buildings.