UCLA Outpatient Surgery and Medical Office Building

Cor Wagenaar, Noor Mens

Description

This outpatient clinic by Michael W. Folonis (principal) and Rudy Gonzalez (project architect) acts as a satellite for a large inpatient facility across the street. The feel of the Outpatient Surgery Center and Medical Office Building is saturated by a characteristically Californian approach, its distinguishing feature being the continuous connection between in- and outdoors and the way daylight floods the interior. Furbishing the interior with natural materials, the typically Californian combination of modern geometry and domestic warmth creates a pleasant, almost leisurely atmosphere. Sightlines connect indoor planting with the landscape outside; exterior patio gardens on the ground floor invite patients to wait outside. Plants also enliven the waiting areas on the second floor, where lightwells provide daylight. Louvered windows avoid glare inside. Solar panels are mounted on the roof and provide up to 25 % of the building’s electricity. Other energy-saving features included the use of recycled steel.

The program comprised an ambulatory-surgery clinic with eight operating theaters, a radiation-oncology clinic, a blood lab and general clinics in a building of only three floors. Creating two box-like volumes that cantilever outward from a set-back ground floor and filling the space in between with an expansive, three-storied lobby, Folonis achieved a simple overall layout. The lobby serves as a logistical hub. A full-height, mullion-free glass wall, in combination with a glass skylight, floods it with light. Internal spaces facing the lobby receive indirect daylight through pocketed windows. The larger of the box-like wings accommodates most of the hospital processes, the smaller is used for supportive functions. Bridges on the first and second floor connect both. California is dominated by low-rise, suburban sprawl and there is little alternative to the use of private vehicles, creating the need for car parking. At UCLA’s ambulatory center a fully automated parking system has been installed. There are six drop-off points that provide the visitors with instructions via LED signs that give access to this system. Cranes carry the car to a platform that assigns it to one of the 380 parking places in six levels underneath the building, a solution that saves 50 % of the space needed for this many cars. The automated system will reduce the number of kilometers wasted by searching for an empty lot by more than 1,500; moreover, the time needed to retrieve the car is only two minutes.