Marianne O’Brien gives value engineering, or in her case, “value architecting” a good name. She also smashes the stereotype of architects as oblivious to cost and constructibility issues. At the University of California, San Francisco’s stem-cell research lab, a serpentine cliff-hanger in a seismic zone that was excruciatingly difficult to build, O’Brien saved the day by finding ways to slash $20 million off the price of the over-budget conceptual design by Rafael Viñoly Architects, without sacrificing architectural intent and functionality.