Dear UCSF Community,

We are pleased to share the exciting news that UCSF has selected two highly regarded architectural firms to serve as the design team for the new hospital at Helen Diller Medical Center at Parnassus Heights.

The firms, Herzog & de Meuron, a Switzerland-based architectural firm known for its innovative design, and HDR, a multidisciplinary, human-centered architecture practice, bring significant expertise in designing health care facilities in urban settings around the world.

The architects will help us realize our vision for the hospital of the future as a holistic health care setting designed around the needs of the patient, connected to the natural environs of Parnassus Heights and the community. The architectural team will work with UCSF, with input from the local community, to design a hospital that is integrated with our world-renowned research and teaching enterprise, and aesthetically complementary with the neighborhood.

Importantly, the new hospital will expand our capacity to serve more patients who are referred to UCSF for the highly specialized care we offer. The number of patients we have had to turn away due to a lack of bed capacity at Parnassus Heights is approaching 3,000 a year. You can read more online about the new hospital and the architects.

The UC Regents recently approved us to start work on our new hospital, a project launched with a generous...