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the façade of the south side to capture heat and to provide maximum daylight. The north side, which has no heat gain, has an entirely glazed façade and since it faces the campus, was designed to echo the design standards of the rest of UCSD buildings. The ballast rock and metal battens on the roof were designed and installed in a manner that allow the building to blend with the canyon when viewed from the patient rooms and balconies of the medical center buildings to the north. Every system in the CUP was designed to mitigate noise leaching into the sur- rounding environment. For example, the cooling towers sit in a basin adjacent to protected wetlands, and are surrounded by concrete walls with acoustical panels to reduce sound impact to the environment. The team's goal was to not exceed 75 decibels; it more than achieved its quest with a maximum of 68 deci- bels. The team also utilized ultra-low noise fans on the cooling towers. The coordinated ef ort to bring the project to fruition earlier than scheduled was a result of the commitment of the UC San Diego Jacobs Medical Center facility staf , general contractor Kitchell, Control Air, EXP Engineers and CannonDesign. The two-story, 40,000-square-foot building services the hospital and the $750-million medical center expansion (underway). It also has capacity to accommodate 1 million square feet of future expansion. The CUP sits nestled in a canyon, which abuts the medical center campus. The designers' main goal was to blend into the canyon, while providing visual appeal, since it is visible from many areas of the campus, including patient rooms, wait- ing areas and administrative areas and graduate student housing. It also fl anks a main medical campus road that will soon extend over the I-5 freeway to join the medical and academic campuses. Extending green goals The top priority was to not only minimize impact to the surrounding environment, but also to enhance it. After several dif erent de- sign iterations, the design-assist team came up with a tiered building that follows the natural contours of the edge of the canyon. "From an architectural and engineer- ing standpoint, there is nothing like this. Usually CUPs are add-ons to a build- ing's central design," said CanonDesign Associate Vice President Christof Madeiski. "We approached the design of the CUP so it would be as pleasing as the architectural marvel it sits beside. When you look down from the south side of the medical center, you will have views of the CUP, the ocean and the canyon. It all needs to blend together." Even the colorization of the building was carefully considered. Metal panels, coated with "ultra cool" paint appear to change hues of green as you walk by. Gravel on the roof is canyon-colored earth tones to blend with the Joshua trees and scrub, for example, indigenous to the area. The visual appeal of the roof was given signifi cant attention because a large proportion of those who will see the building will view it from above. The new CUP for Jacobs Medical Center epitomizes form meeting func- tion at its very best. It is already a point of great pride for the entire design-assist team and is destined to become an eco- standard bearer for future CUPs. Brandon Potts is senior project manager at Kitchell. Green news & practices The CUP Features > Three 1,300 ton chillers, which generate enough chilled water to fi ll 10 Olympic-sized swimming pools each day > Three 3,900 gallon-per- minute cooling towers > Three 21,000 pound- per-hour steam boilers capable of creating steam to heat 1,000 homes daily > Four 2.5-megawatt emergency generators, which could generate enough electricity to power 10,000 homes > Two 30,000 gallon underground fuel tanks > 3,000-square-foot underground utility tunnel for mechanical utility routing Main entrance to UC San Diego Jacobs Medical Center's new central utility plant. 58 Medical Construction & Design | M AY/ J U N E 2015 | MCDM AG.COM