UC San Diego Proceeds With Grad Student Housing’s Second Phase

San Diego—The University of California, San Diego (UC San Diego) has tapped Hensel Phelps-Mithun to design-build the second phase of its East Campus student housing project. Formally known as the UC San Diego Nuevo West, the graduate student housing development will consist of over 880 beds and related amenity spaces in two main buildings completed in 2019.

Among the 880-plus beds will be 80 beds for families and patients undergoing medical treatments at the adjacent UCSD medical center. The property will also include 1,350 parking stalls; outdoor gathering spaces; and a market and café. The second phase of the project will be directly adjacent to first phase, Mesa Nueva Graduate Student Housing, which is currently in construction with a completion slated for later this year.

Nuevo West will be designed to meet LEED Gold certification and utilize passive solar and thermal stack effect principles to achieve high-performance building energy goals. A cast-in-place concrete structural frame will creates thermal mass to provide passive cooling, and a transpired collector system will enhance ventilation by heating air contained in an internal “solar chimney” that creates a stack effect to pull in cool air through openings at the end of corridors and common spaces.

Solar thermal collectors located on the building roof provide solar heating for domestic hot water. Also, the project’s design directly responds to its function, with façades that direct the westerly prevailing winds to cool the building with natural ventilation. Building orientation also minimizes heat gain and glare.

UC San Diego, founded in 1960, has grown in recent years to encompass six undergraduate colleges and 11 divisions and schools, with about 33,700 students. Scripps Institution of Oceanography, founded in the early 1900s and now a division of the university, served as a catalyst and an incubator for UC San Diego’s initial growth.