University of San Francisco | INTERSTICE Architects

A transformative landscape approach offers the new Center for Science and Innovation (CSI), the opportunity  to completely  re-configure the central social hub of its 87-year old University of San Francisco campus,  by creating a rejuvenated and integrated landscape that connects and enriches as it weaves through the new LEED Gold Academic Building.  The design team determined that this central site would better support the Center’s mission of fostering multidisciplinary collaboration and discovery and that landscape would be the glue.  Limited land at the heart of campus demanded an unprecedented level of integrated project delivery in which the landscape would merge with the building to take front stage in the new development.  

Breaking from a century old tradition of landscape subservient to buildings,  deployed as foundation plantings around “buildings-in-the-landscape”;  the radical integrated design solution placed over two-thirds of the new building below ground,  comprehensively redefining the existing central Harney plaza, as a high-performance, bi-level  rooftop landscape connecting interior and exterior space and program.  By establishing multi-level access between building and landscape, the design creates an experience of moving seamlessly between multiple expressions of “ground” on three separate levels of the inner campus.

The folded and overlapping landscape, covers the roof of the “in-ground” 2-story complex of laboratories, classrooms and lecture halls. It is intimately woven through-out  the building, emerging to support a complex palette of native plants, small insects and birds which permeate the newly enhanced campus thriving side by side with students and faculty,  in the newly established landscape ecology. Its success is measured in its ability to provide a re-imagined “academic landscape” that fulfills a socially and ecologically sustaining role finally in line with the University’s aim to expand the growing links between the sciences and other social science disciplines.

To unify and enhance connectivity the Landscape clarified and re-aligned the central circulation spine of the USF campus,  creating a tree-lined pedestrian-oriented “Campus Walk” of Ginkos - which focused on students while replacing the meager vehicular asphalt access drive.  Selected as the signature tree for its uniqueness as an ancient species, its connections to the Pacific and Asian culture, its longevity, and its traditional medicinal relation to the sciences – the Ginko’s seasonal foliage colors change from green to gold, now seasonally celebrate the school’s official colors.  By linking the other faculty buildings by this simple gesture of pageantry,  the Campus axis is formally established now refocused on the majestic tower and graceful dome of St. Ignatius Church, which provided a focal point for this new pedestrian thoroughfare. 

The Mise-en-scene of student life was further established by an undulating lawn adjacent to the Campus Walk which bridged a lecture hall below to connect with a dining amphitheater adjacent to the University Center student union cafe.  The new bi-level plaza is a multifunctional social landscape that supports campus rituals, daily gatherings and specially scheduled activities in a sustainable and supportive relationship to the larger regional ecologies native to the Bay area.

This high-performing landscape acknowledges its contribution and proximity to significant ecological resources in San Francisco and to the migration path of the Pacific Flyway. By studying the fluid dynamics of wind through predictive modeling and thermal micro-climate analysis the landscape was fine tuned to species selection to the advantage of the natural ecology of the area.  The deep plantings support large tree while supporting a bio-pool within significant storm water filtration areas which in turn feed collection and storage reservoirs of water for cooling campus facilities. These ecologically intensive habitat areas correlate with the Science Center’s larger pedagogical objectives related to environmental sciences.   This mufti-faceted “out-door” classroom serves at the many levels now expected of our exemplary campuses of higher education, and ensures USF as a leading institution of environmental stewardship and education globally in the coming century.