COVER STORY, JANUARY 2007

CHANGES IN LATITUDES
Design trends change with new architectural challenges.
Anastasia Parsons

It’s an age-old debate — style versus substance. Often times, one is sacrificed for the sake of the other — aesthetic is abandoned for the inclusion of advanced technology or beauty takes priority over practicality. Those that take issue with this argument can be classified as trailblazers, pioneers or innovators who choose to generate creative solutions rather than remain single-minded. This challenge is all too familiar to the many architectural firms in the West, which, when faced with rising construction costs, new environmental codes and regulations, and the client demands for attractive spaces, have generated properties that are helping to redefine “modern” across all industry lines.

The hallmark of public-use facilities, such as those used by healthcare or civic operations, has always been efficiency, a need-based idea that has led to a tradition of sterilized appearance and modest amenities. In recent years, however, these industries have experienced a conceptual shift, incorporating new approaches with more cost-effective means to create environments that encourage interaction and, where appropriate, are better suited for healing.

Holistic healing and the benefits of nature have become common elements in hospital and healthcare facility designs in the West. Bringing the outside in and vice versa creates a sense of ease among the patients, their families and the staff, thereby creating an environment more conducive to healing, according to Andrew Beilfuss, RTKL Associates’ vice president and regional practice leader, and David Noferi, associate vice president and director of healthcare for Hammel, Green and Abrahamson Inc. (HGA), both in Los Angeles. Natural materials, improved lighting designs (including day lighting techniques), and the use of landscaping, water features and gardens are becoming design fixtures, as evidenced by RTKL’s Sulpizio Family Cardiovascular Center in La Hoya, California — a University of California (UCSD), San Diego, property.

Thornton Hospital at University of California, San Diego — a RTKL Associates’ design.

Designed by RTKL and developed by UCSD, the 140,000-square-foot addition to Thornton Hospital will feature amenities such as an outdoor entry atrium, healing garden and courtyard upon its completion in late fall 2009. “In a healthcare environment, there’s a tremendous sense of confinement and loss of control,” says Beilfuss. “One of the drivers of this project was to create something that evoked the wonderful La Hoya setting.”

The natural wonders of La Hoya’s coastal environment, including ocean cliffs, canyons and native forests were incorporated and partially replicated. The premise, a glass jewel box atop a stone base, is to make visual and actual access to the outdoors possible for all patients, family and staff. Existing boulders and sudo materials have been planned to replicate natural elements in order to save on construction costs. Concerns about future energy/air-conditioning costs for a predominantly glass structure have also been remedied with the incorporation of an exterior heat-managing feature on the structure’s south side.

Sustainability of design is also a consideration for firms such as Noferi’s. Use of natural materials and landscaping features is important, but equally important is the incorporation of interior elements that are easy to regulate and encourage personal interactions in a healthcare environment.

“Rather than applying old standards to hospital design, they’re [healthcare systems] reorganizing to provide improved patient safety and a better experience for the patient and the family,” says Noferi. “There’s such a movement now for quality design that equates to quality healthcare.”

University of California, Davis’s M.I.N.D Institute

Completed in July 2003, the University of California, Davis’s M.I.N.D. Institute (Medical Investigation of Neurodevelopmental Disorders) is a prime example of concept. A campus that would allow for collaboration of effort and interaction among researchers, clinicians, educators, students and patients was the goal. The result, a five-building model totaling 136,000 square feet, was constructed, with each structure connected by a ground-level loggia system. Shared entrances and common areas encouraged interaction and the meeting of minds. Native, natural materials, such as stone and redwood, were incorporated as part of healthcare’s trend toward the holistic, and the interior was designed to match this sense of warmth with comforting colors, lighting and features, such as sofas and easy chairs, in the exam rooms.

The movement from institutional toward a more inviting atmosphere can also be seen in civic projects such as the Hercules Public Library in Hercules, California. Opened in November 2006, this HGA project incorporates an interior sky garden to provide natural light, a main reading room with large west-facing windows, a fireplace for added winter warmth, and an outdoor garden to be enjoyed by the community. Additionally, separate teen and children’s centers, equipped with computers, are available for study, activities and research.

Beyond the physical aesthetic, civic facilities, such as local libraries, are including more advanced service elements that allow patrons to individualize their experiences. There is no longer a need for multiple service desks now that a majority of reference materials are computerized. Hercules has incorporated only one central information desk to encourage increased staff interaction and personalized service for patrons.

“In general, libraries are becoming more casual environments, less hushed and serving as community gathering places,” says Jane Dedering, associate vice president for HGA, Wisconsin office.

This trend holds true for office spaces as well, according to Gary Baker, vice president in charge of design services for San Diego-based Smith Consulting Architects. Spaces to gather and interact are being incorporated more and more into new office interiors, and things, such as cubicle walls, are being lowered to allow for more employee interaction.

But it’s not just break rooms that are seeing upgrades. Hunter Industries, a San Marcos, California-based manufacturer of high-performance irrigation systems, is integrating amenities such as decks and green spaces into its property, a 122,000-square-foot building featuring a limestone façade with bronze-glazed windows that will be completed in October 2007. A 2,000-square-foot, second-level party deck complete with barbeque and wet-bar capabilities and the landscaped, outdoor eating areas (complete with water features) were both conceived as prime entertainment spots for employees. Internally, the structure will be powered by cutting-edge, highly efficient solar technology. The system, which will be installed on Hunter’s roof, will be so effective at energy production that it will not only completely power it’s own heating and cooling systems, but be able to easily put enough power back into the grid to energize 50-100 single-family homes, according to Baker.

“We are being challenged to be more environmentally friendly in our design,” says Baker. “We’re pleased to be working with a company [Hunter] that is this forward thinking. That’s where we want to be.”

Mouritzen Glenn, principal constructional engineer for San Diego-based Lyons Warren, also sees the future in these types of green materials. His firm has been incorporating devices such as waterless toilets, which can save 20,000 to 30,000 gallons of water per year, and energy efficient roofs into his office, warehouse and industrial builds. Maintenance challenges are on the rise in the industrial sector, according to Glenn. Environmental standards dictate stricter control of storm water runoff and other surface drainage. Newer filtration systems have to be incorporated into future designs in order to remain up to code.

Growing construction costs and more stringent regulations have become a dominant budgetary factor across industries in the past few years. Firms such as Graham Downes Architecture (GDA) are feeling the heat to generate distinctive looks for properties in the hospitality/mixed-use sector with budgets depleted by high-cost necessities like steel and concrete.

“As designers, we really end up compromised,” says Graham Downes, principal for the firm. “More than before we have to sharpen our pencils and be really creative. You have a choice — you can either meet the challenge or you lose the project.”

Fortunately GDA and firms such as Perkowitz + Ruth Architects have gravitated toward a more contemporary, European-inspired look where simple style articulations dominate. Luxury no longer needs to be coupled with the grandiose, according to Downes. The use of interesting, rich materials that are more sustainable has increased exponentially. Recycled glass, reconstituted wood, plastics and resins are helping redefine refined. Advances in low energy-use lighting have changed the look and personality of public spaces, in hotels especially, helping to create, as Downes puts it, “more intimate, vibey spaces.” Image projection and other media applications are also changing the definitions of artistic decor.

The international look has also carried over to mixed-use retail, as seen in Perkowitz + Ruth properties that have incorporated a little of Hong Kong and Copenhagen into West Coast design. Mixing styles creates a village atmosphere, while allowing retailers to maintain the distinctiveness of their brands, according to J. Todd Stoutenborough, principal for Perkowitz + Ruth. More important than the outward dressing of design, however, is the visibility of the retailer. Glass again becomes an important material because it allows for transparent spaces that can even be “shopped” by after-hours passersby.

Downes and Stoutenborough also state that the acquisition of redevelopment-primed properties is another trend on the rise for hospitality and mixed-use projects. “The most topical [trend] is going back to the cities, those pockets in between, those that are blighted, that people have turned their backs on,” says Downes.

Sonoma Mountain Village, an MBH Architects’ design.

Though another decade in the making, Sonoma Mountain Village in Rohnert Park, California, an MBH Architects-designed property, embodies the reuse concept. Upon completion in 2016, approximately 200 acres of current rural industrial space will be converted to a mixed-use, multifamily setting that provides a high-density, downtown, urban feel in rural greenfield.

On the flip side, developments such as Bridgeport Village, a Perkowitz & Ruth project, can spark restoration in suburban areas and revitalize downtown districts that have waned over the years. Located in Tualatin, Oregon, the 502,000-square-foot, mixed-use lifestyle center has given a heart back to the community’s downtown, according to Stoutenborough. Perkowitz & Ruth consulted the community every step of the way, from the type of development they were looking for to the types of retailers that should be included in order to create a destination for Tualatin.

“Clients and cities are becoming more sensitive to public interaction and the value of retail as a place for community gathering,” says Jeffrey Gill, vice president and principal for Irvine, California-based MCG Architecture. “[Cities] now embrace outdoor districts, internal living rooms with fireplaces and upgraded street appeal in response to accepting shopping environments as an important public element in our communities,” says Gill. “It is no longer just stop and shop. Communities now use these spaces as their public parks, town squares and symbols of their city entity in our expanding regions.”

And it is this consumer demand for central spots that continues the trend of property repositioning for residential and retail use. Changing community demographics have also contributed to this trend, according to Gill, as is evidenced by the “enlivening” of older centers and the partial demolition of older malls to create new outdoor districts in the West. This was the case with Sierra Vista Mall, a MCG project in Clovis, California, that opened in December 2006. The formerly enclosed mall was partially gutted to add 80,000 square feet of outdoor offerings, including landscaped pathways leading to a central plaza designed for hosting community events.

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