San Francisco Day School is a co-educational, independent school in San Francisco that values "experiences that bridge intellect and imagination." In order to provide the best educational opportunities to students, SF Day School wanted to expand its footprint to offer more classroom space and find a way to support teachers with housing in a city with rents that often exceed a teacher’s salary.

SF Day School engaged Herrero for three unique scopes completed with concurrent schedules under a single GMP contract.

1. The main project, a 10,000 square-foot, ground-up addition building, provided new teaching spaces, classrooms and inquiry labs, performance space, and a rooftop garden for play and assembly.
2. The second was the conversion of a 1907 Victorian house for faculty housing, enabling the school to offer affordable housing options to retain teaching talent.
3. The final project was a remodel of the school’s primary entrance. This included moving the main PG&E transformer underground, a voluntary structural upgrade to the primary egress stair, and a complete remodel of the exterior entrance, main lobby, and main stairwell.

The expansion effort was 17 years in the making. During this time, the school’s list of programming desires continued to grow and ultimately evolved into a structure with several unique learning spaces for students. These spaces included a wood shop, innovation room, art rooms, robotics lab, band and green room, rooftop science yard, and a high-end performance space all required to fit into the 10,000 square feet offered by the addition.

SF Day School was looking for a new approach for this three-phase renovation project. Herrero applied Integrated Project Delivery (IPD) principals to achieve the client’s goals under a traditional AIA contract.

Herrero carried this integrated approach through construction, and it yielded several direct benefits:

• Team continuity from preconstruction through construction
• Establishment of realistic budget targets
• Rolling estimates to inform the team about targets through SD, DD, and CD
• Bringing key trade partners to the table early
• Smart shell concepts to add value but stay within targets
• Team-wide identification of issues and collaborative solutions.

The team built the same level of trust seen on IPD projects but without a formal IPD contract by embedding Lean ideas and IPD culture. In an environment and time that presented immense challenges and many opportunities for failure, the IPD principles allowed this team to thrive.

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