Somebody can make scales, someone else makes the eyes that glow in the dark and move, and someone else makes the fire effect. That's kind of the best part of this—everybody's contributing to a larger whole.

Paul Franke
Principal Planner, Campus Planning ‌UCSF Real Estate

Paul's Burning Art

Tell us about your role. 

As a principal planner in Real Estate, I get to build the future of UCSF. It's a magical job. To support the future science and research, my work is another important component of taking care of patients—the patients of tomorrow. I get to meet all these incredibly smart people and hear what they think the future is, and my job is to figure out what we need to build to meet our goals. Half of my day is spent handling in-the-moment needs with the big projects happening right now, such as the Helen Diller Hospital, Bakar Research and Academic Building, and the School of Nursing. We need something from the city or PG&E, or a new issue arises on campus. Every day, it's something a little bit new, but half of the day is getting the existing projects built. The other half of my time is planning for the future.

‌How did you get involved in the Burning Man art scene?

I've had friends who have always made art, and I've always helped them. I did planning and engineering in school, so I helped them bring it to life. One of my favorite projects was these giant ball gowns out of incredible fabrics. I started helping my friend Anastasia do that, and that's how I got involved with the Burning Man art. (Burning Man is an annual week-long counterculture event in Nevada's Black Rock Desert, Black Rock City, focused on community, art, radical self-expression, and self-reliance.)

Tell us about the art you build for Burning Man. 

I help build some of the big wooden art pieces that happen every year. We build this portable city in the desert for a week, with more than 70,000 people camping in this C-shaped space. And right here in the middle of it, we build something called The Man. And on the side is something called Temple. And then all of the other art surrounds both of those. It looks different every year. 

‌The Temple is non-denominational; it's not religious. To me, it's related to the mission of UCSF by addressing people dealing with loss. Many UCSF people help build it every year. People will bring a memento. It might be something their kid had, a Little League uniform, or something that belonged to someone who passed away. But it's not just people who pass away; there's also a joyful element to it. People get married there. It's really everybody in society. Anybody and everybody, celebrating life. 

‌We've built the Man every year for the last 25 years. It gets burned on the Saturday night of the Burning Man.

How does the art get built? 

We build it in the Bay Area. It's what's called modular construction. We start building it in April and put it on 18-wheeler trucks. It can fill up 20 18-wheeler trucks. And then we bring it up there and assemble the pieces to build it. It's usually a group of about 50 people who work or support each other. Somebody can make scales, someone else makes the eyes that glow in the dark and move, and someone else makes the fire effect. That's kind of the best part of this—everybody's contributing to a larger whole.

FAVORITE COOKIE JAR TREAT 

Coconut oatmeal cookie 

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