Welcome.
This website hosts a curated collection of best practices and standards that support architects and designers undergoing interior architectural design projects for UCSF campuses.
At UCSF we work passionately to advance knowledge, yielding scientific breakthroughs that benefit life and health worldwide. We innovate health education across disciplines to develop collaborative and creative leaders. The lives of our patients and populations are improved by creating and implementing urgently needed new practices, policies, therapies, and cures. Design excellence supports all that we do.
The UCSF Interior Design Standards are a living collection of documents to help design teams achieve design excellence specific to UCSF's Mission and Values. These standards inform all UCSF projects across all campus areas and project types. The Guiding Principles provide a lens for design teams to provide high level touchpoints that each project will translate into specific design strategies appropriate to the use and location. The Interior Design Standards are organized by program, spatial type, and function. Each standard provides design teams with insights into human experience, materiality, and lessons learned. The Library is where you will find showcased projects, related UCSF resources and standards, and a quick search function of all the Interior Design Standards to date.
Guiding Principles
Inclusive
UCSF is committed to inclusion. Aim to celebrate and express each project's uniqueness while maintaining UCSF's identity. Use universal design principles to design for cognitive and physical accessibility needs and create a place for all.
Human-Focused
Foster design that elevates the human experience and promotes healing — from the use of healthy and durable materials, ergonomics for a safe work environment, to the physical and psychological benefits of biophilic design and connections to nature.
Impact
Seek opportunities to share how we care, teach, and discover. Create spaces responsive to technological workflows, as well as programmatic and operational needs.
Interdisciplinary Pollination
Cultivate serendipitous encounters and stimulate interdisciplinary collaboration among health, academic, and research disciplines. Utilize empathic wayfinding and memorable placemaking strategies that facilitate collaboration.
Future-Proof
Design for the needs of both the present day and the future considering sustainability and safety factors. Integrate emerging technologies and anticipate future adaptability, flexibility, and resiliency.
Community
UCSF is a part of our community. Design welcoming spaces and increase porosity between our campuses and our neighbors.
Resources
Find the information you need in our libraries.
UCSF Missions & Values
UCSF Health Mission
This is a live website. We are working on developing new content. Please come back soon.
Please note design teams should use these resources in conjunction with their UCSF Project Manager's guidance. They are not meant to be prescriptive nor exhaustive and will evolve over time, so please check back regularly for updates.
Feedback
Have feedback on our website? We would like to hear. For all project related questions, please reach out to your project manager.
Thank you!