The hillside location for the Ray and Dagmar Dolby Regeneration Medicine building at the University of California, San Francisco, presented a challenge to the Building Team of Raphael Viñoly, SmithGroup, DPR Construction, and Forell/Elsesser Engineers. The 660-foot-long serpentine-shaped building sits on a structural framework 40 to 70 feet off the ground to accommodate the hillside’s steep 60-degree slope, while custom earthquake isolation devices will keep tremor damage at bay by allowing 23 inches of lateral movement. To accommodate a strict schedule and budget, the Building Team saved money and streamlined construction by moving a mechanical level, originally designed to hang below the structure, to the office level to avoid construction conflicts. They also reclassified the 80,000-sf building from hazardous occupancy to business, utilizing new building codes. The $123 million project is targeting LEED Gold.
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Burt Hill, HOK top BD+C's ranking of the nation's 100 largest university design firms
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PBK, DLR Group among nation's largest K-12 school design firms, according to BD+C's Giants 300 report
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Turner Building Cost Index dips nearly 4% in second quarter 2009
Turner Construction Company announced that the second quarter 2009 Turner Building Cost Index, which measures nonresidential building construction costs in the U.S., has decreased 3.35% from the first quarter 2009 and is 8.92% lower than its peak in the second quarter of 2008. The Turner Building Cost Index number for second quarter 2009 is 837.
