Contract - January/February 2016 - 88

INTERIORS AWARDS

Healthcare
NBBJ

Palo Alto
Medical Foundation
San Carlos Center
By Lydia Lee
Photography by
Bruce Damonte and
Sean Airhart/NBBJ

Client
Sutter Health & Palo
Alto Medical Foundation
Location
San Carlos, California
88

The words "hospital" and "hospitality" have a common etymological
ancestor: "hospes," the Latin word for guest. In their earliest
incarnations, hospitals provided lodging for the less fortunate and
traveling pilgrims. Today's healthcare facilities are returning full circle
to become more hospitable places. Similar to a resort or spa, the Sutter
Health & Palo Alto Medical Foundation (PAMF) San Carlos Center is
a new ground-up clinic in the San Francisco Bay area. The
198,000-square-foot facility was designed by NBBJ to emphasize
abundant natural light and to foster an atmosphere of wellness.
"We tried to create an environment that felt healing for people,"
says Josie Briggs, senior associate/interior designer at NBBJ. "The
client wanted a building that spoke to the community and had a
connection with the outdoors."
Located in the town of San Carlos, California, the medical
complex is intended to accommodate a rapidly growing population
along the San Francisco Peninsula. In this first phase, NBBJ designed
a four-story outpatient clinic building, a reception and ambulatory
surgery center, and a separate parking garage on the 18-acre site.
A hospital is planned for a future phase. The contemporary design is
inspired by the area's California Mission style and its placement of
organizing elements around a courtyard to maximize natural light.
NBBJ's work is particularly impressive given the eight-year time
span between design and completion, which included a period during
the recession in which the project was put on hold. "It's always difficult
designing large projects to feel timeless and fresh when they are
completed years later," Briggs says.
The building's design prioritizes transparency, not simply to
promote natural lighting but also to aid wayfinding. The garage's
luminous glass stairwell overlooks the adjacent reception building,
allowing patients to easily see where they need to go while also
encouraging them to bypass the elevator. The spacious lobby feels like
that of a luxury ski resort, with walls of cleft-cut sandstone and massive
end-block Douglas fir. Here, as well as in the waiting areas for each
clinic, high-backed Martin Brattrud Reveal banquettes provide
cozy seating options.

To enter the clinic, patients pass through the complex's signature
element, a transparent corridor dubbed "the bridge" by the design
team. "We see the bridge as a special place for people to connect with
nature," Briggs says. "The design intent was to have a place where
people could stop, rest, and look at the gardens on either side of the
bridge and feel inspired." A 45-foot-long live-edge wood bench-
custom fabricated locally from a single native Claro walnut tree-runs
the length of the bridge. An aluminum canopy, CNC-turret-punched
with a pattern of leaves, creates dappled light. By implementing
integrated project delivery, NBBJ was able to collaboratively design the
canopy and other architectural elements with the contracting team.
With large expanses of glass on the exterior walls, the clinic
waiting areas also receive plentiful daylight. Photographs of the rolling
hills and oak woodlands of the region are featured within horizontal
niches along the waiting areas' interior walls. Translucent dividers,
printed with botanical illustrations of native plants, serve as pleasing
markers of the individual clinic waiting areas.
Behind the scenes, in an arrangement that is still considered
unusual within the healthcare industry, physicians and medical
assistants work in a primarily open-plan office. By grouping in pods of
four, the staff is able to deliver team-based care, an approach that can
improve patient outcomes while reducing healthcare costs.
As the project's medical sponsor, Dr. Ali Shafaie worked to
make this a "future-proof facility" and planned ahead for this new
way of working. "Physicians and staff have responded very positively,"
Dr. Shafaie says. "And they have found that it works well in improving
communication among the teams." c

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Contract - January/February 2016

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