Photo: In response to San Francisco’s urgent need for high-density affordable housing, The Tidelands doubled the housing available to UCSF medical students and trainees, offering 595 units across two buildings. | Photo Credit (all): Courtesy of Clark Pacific
By Doug Bevier
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As mainstays of innovation and progress, universities are under growing pressure to address climate change. And with a profound understanding of the scientific imperative to act, many are prioritizing decarbonization across every facet of campus life, from operations and academics to community engagement. At the University of California, San Francisco (UCSF), transforming the physical campus by replacing traditional design and construction methods with prefabrication has significantly reduced its carbon footprint. The Tidelands, a student housing project situated in San Francisco’s Dogpatch neighborhood, showcases how this shift to prefabrication, combined with a thoughtful design-build process and rigorous performance targets, has helped lower carbon emissions, create healthier spaces and set new benchmarks for sustainable campus development.
Balancing Aesthetics, Carbon Emissions and Cost
In response to San Francisco’s urgent need for high-density affordable housing, The Tidelands doubled the amount of housing available to UCSF medical students and trainees, offering 595 units across two buildings.
The need to balance aesthetics, environmental impacts and cost became a driver for thoughtful design solutions across the project, inspiring creative problem-solving rather than hindering owner priorities for a timeless building and minimized carbon footprint. The architect, engineers and UCSF came together early in the project, which allowed for the selection of healthy building materials that were also affordable, the integration of passive strategies and cross-team coordination for faster, informed decision-making.
Together, the teams determined that the Tidelands would use Clark Pacific’s Infinite Facade with glass fiber-reinforced concrete (GFRC). The design team tested multiple materials for the building envelope, ultimately discovering that GFRC concrete had significantly lower impacts than other options. The Infinite Facade is a building envelope system, prefabricated offsite that is tested for ASTM and AAMA air, water and vapor penetration, and meets or exceeds Title 24 building code requirements for every climate zone in California.
Clark Pacific collaborated with UCSF to determine a window-to-wall ratio that would keep the cost within budget while also focusing on thermal comfort. The design team explored multiple scenarios and the effect each would have on energy systems, cost and performance.
Kieran Timberlake also conducted a façade sun exposure analysis to determine the impact of solar heat gain on the rooms. The design team selected billows, and horizontal and vertical sunshades were built directly into the prefabricated panels on the sun-facing elevations and flat panels on the others. This strategy, combined with the continuous insulation inherent in the Infinite Facade system, ensures the Tidelands project not only meets but surpasses Title 24 prescriptive requirements on performance. The ability to achieve the desired U-value from a single provider eliminated the need for additional subcontractors and consultants, and simplified energy analysis.
Windows were installed during the manufacturing process. The Tidelands project was completed six months ahead of schedule, and UCSF has one point of contact for the building envelope warranty.
Doug Bevier is director of preconstruction at Clark Pacific.