Michael W. Folonis Architects Wins Merit Award for Healthcare Project

LOS ANGELES, Calif. — The UCLA Outpatient Surgery and Medical Building, designed by Michael W. Folonis Architects, has won a 2013 Merit Award from the American Institute of Architects California Council. This is the 11th award for the full-service architecture firm’s first healthcare project.

Michael W. Folonis Architects created a 50,000-square-foot hybrid facility housing community outpatient surgery, oncology treatment and academic and medical office facilities for UCLA medical students and faculty. The new building was developed by Randall Miller, PE, of Nautilus Group and is slated for LEED Gold certification. Despite its healthcare purpose and high-technology functions, AIACC jurors said the building “is pretty cool, and didn’t seem medical, which is a good thing.”

Instead, the award-winning building is an elegant balance of aesthetics, efficiency and sensitivity. The massing of the building consists of two great rectangular volumes in a combination of board-formed and cast-in-place concrete, fronted with glass, louvers and light shelves. The two individual volumes are joined by a glass box creating a grand atrium bathed in natural light. “We displayed the imperatives of transparency and function and the aesthetic of early California Modernism in the passive solar design, the building skin’s glass and concrete and the interior’s exposed steel and sweeping sight lines,” says Michael W. Folonis, FAIA, principal of his Santa Monica, Calif.-based firm. Meanwhile, interior courtyards and “micro gardens” create soothing environments to enhance the patient experience.

The project’s other honors include a 2013 National Healthcare Design Award from the AIA Academy of Architecture for Health in the Built category, and a Los Angeles Business Council Architectural Award in the Healthcare category. In 2012, the facility won design awards from AIA Los Angeles, Southern California Development Forum, as well as others. In addition, it also won awards while still under construction.

Affiliates: Client: Sixteenth Street Medical Center LP
User: UCLA Health System
Architect: Michael W. Folonis Architects
Landscape Architect: Pamela Burton & Company
General Contractor: Nautilus Group
Mechanical Engineer: Vision Mechanical
Plumbing/Electrical Engineer: Design Build
Structural Engineer: Nautilus Group
Medical Planner: Planning Decision Resources/George Pressler, FAIA
LEED and Acoustical Consultant: Arup
Lighting Designer: Kaplan Gehring McCarroll Architectural Lighting
Photographer: Tom Bonner