UCSF Community Center

A bright yellow column anchors the glazed atrium wall that serves as a grand entrance portico to the UCSF Community Center.

Project Details

• Project Name: UCSF Community Center
• Client: University of California in San Francisco
• Project Type: Community Center
• Principal Designer/s: LEGORRETA + LEGORRETA Architects
  (Ricardo Legorreta, Victor Legorreta)
• Executive Architect: MBT Architecture
• Contractor/s: Hensel-Phelps
• Date of completion of project : 2005
• Location of site: San Francisco, CA, USA
• Built-up Area: 14,570 sq.m.

View of the main facade from across the green space that foregrounds the building.

The glazed atrium wall serves as an entrance portico and is visible right of center. The pyramidal roof left of the atrium serves as a light-giving lantern to the basketball and other courts on the topmost floor of the building. Also visible is the 'pink patio' right of the entrance and adjacent to the totem-like corner tower.

The Project

Located in one of the largest developments of San Francisco, the UCSF (University of California in San Francisco) Mission Bay Campus Community Center has been conceived to be the heart of the campus where students, faculty and community come together to enjoy, socialize and interact.

Projected to have about 2000 people in the first phase and about 9100 when completed, the four-storey 156,000 gross sq.ft. building combines a variety of uses within a single structure.

The outdoor swimming pool that forms part of the diverse program of the community center.

The diverse program combines such facilities as a fitness complex, a conference center with an auditorium seating 400 people, a gymnasium with basketball and volleyball courts, swimming pools (one indoor and the other outdoors), dining and food facilities, offices and retail space, all of which are organized around an atrium.

Topped by a dramatic skylight that allows natural light into the building, the atrium serves as an orienting point, assembling the different spaces and helping the users to establish a visual connection within the building.

Views of the sunlight drenched central atrium. An orange-coloured grand stair leads to the second floor - visible on the bottom right (photo: left). The glazed wall of the atrium with the connecting bridges as viewed from the fourth floor (photo: right).

The first floor is formed by different program uses: the main food services which face the green space in front of the building, the fitness center which faces the tennis courts, the game room and the library; all are structured around the atrium.

Vaulted passageways lead from the central atrium to various spaces within the building.

Connected to the first floor by a grand stair, the second floor has an indoor pool with locker rooms for men and women, student services, office space and an auditorium which is capable of seating 400 people and sub-dividable if necessary into small break out rooms.

The third floor accommodates another part of the student services; this area primarily serves basic needs of the academic community like the student health center. On the fourth floor, the building combines different program areas such as the gymnasium, racket ball and squash courts.

Views of spaces on the fourth (uppermost) floor - the basketball courts topped by the pyramidal roof lantern (photo: left) and the 'Pink Patio' (photo: right).

Credits

• Text: Courtesy the architects
• Photographs: Lourdes Legorreta
• Compiled by Suprio Bhattacharjee