Project Data:

Completion Date:     6/2/2025

Square Footage:      610000

Building Use:           Medical Center

Project Description:

The UCI Health – Irvine Medical Center embraces UCI’s commitment to sustainable design and is on course to be the first all-electrical hospital in the nation. This distinction responds to the University of California policy restricting fossil fuel combustion for space and water heating. Its design breaks new ground in the pursuit of carbon-free healthcare operations with an all-electric central plant and energy-saving strategies. Delivered using the design-build method, the contractor and architect closely collaborated through each stage of the project to ensure the design achieves stringent performance metrics and responds to the medical center’s unique location adjacent to the protected San Joaquin Marsh. The result is a medical center that establishes harmony between the natural environment and architecture.

The sophisticated campus comprises a 350,000 GSF specialty hospital, 220,000 GSF ambulatory care and cancer center (ACC), a parking structure, and a 42,000 GSF all-electric central plant. The 144-bed hospital includes emergency, specialty inpatient nursing, surgical, imaging, and support services. The ACC features surgical and procedural services, cancer clinics, infusion and translational research and conference space. The buildings are connected at the lowest level to create a single interventional platform, consolidating staff, operations and support space. One level above, an entry-level plaza serves as a focal point of the campus, accommodating gardens and congregation areas with uninterrupted views of the marsh.

The hospital and ACC are configured to increase open space on a congested site by joining the building footprints below the entry. Following the site's natural topography, the levels below the entry are daylit on three sides above grade. As a result, this creates an open-view corridor through the campus from Jamboree Road to the marsh and enables intuitive wayfinding for patients and visitors. As one moves into the campus, the view corridor allows wayfinding that leads to the entry plaza for arrival, drop-off/valet parking, and a variety of spaces including public lobby entries, flexible gathering spaces for health and academic events, a cafeteria, café, and conference center that supports and borrows from activation of the public space, and healing/meditation gardens and other areas of respite overlooking the freshwater marsh. Vehicular circulation paths for staff, service and emergency vehicles have been segregated elsewhere to reduce congestion. At the marsh edge stairs with resting terraces lead from the events plaza to a naturescape trail, providing a pedestrian and bicycle pathway for researchers, caregivers and students between UCI’s North Campus and the main campus.

As a unique highly biophilic healthcare destination, the medical center transitions urban complexity to the natural world and will contribute to protecting the environment through its all-electric design. Designed to last for 70+ years, the medical center will serve as a prominent symbol of UCI Health and UC Irvine’s commitment to sustainability and providing top-tier healthcare. The project provides the highest specialty clinical programs of a prestigious academic medical, teaching and research institution, while seamlessly melding energy efficiency through solar control with efficient and carbon-free operations.

Design for Ecosystems, Design for Energy 

Design for Energy

Hospitals are designed first and foremost to improve and protect human health but are also inexorably linked to roughly 10% of carbon emissions in the United States. To achieve high-performance standards, the design uses a variety of energy-efficient and eco-friendly approaches, such as sunshades, self-shading, green power, and preserving the San Joaquin Marsh Reserve. The architects employed high-efficiency glazing and other shading devices, including dual horizontal sunshades and a custom vertical ceramic frit pattern that doubly creates a bird-friendly surface in consideration of the adjoining wetlands’ bird populations. These methods will contribute to reducing solar heat gain by 85%.

The UCI Health – Irvine medical center embraces UCI’s commitment to sustainable design and is on course to be the first all-electrical hospital in the nation. This distinction responds to the University of California policy restricting fossil fuel combustion for space and water heating. Its design breaks new ground in the pursuit of carbon-free healthcare operations with an all-electric central plant and energy-saving strategies. Delivered using the design-build method, the contractor and architect closely collaborated through each stage of the project to ensure the design achieves stringent performance metrics and responds to the medical center’s unique location adjacent to the protected San Joaquin Marsh. The result is a medical center that establishes harmony between the natural environment and architecture.


Design for Ecosystems

The new UCI Health – Irvine fronts the protected San Joaquin Marsh and serves as the gateway between busy urbanscape and untouched nature. As a unique highly biophilic healthcare destination, the site design transitions urban complexity to the natural world through areas for outdoor respite, marsh and main campus connectors, and numerous gathering terraces and patios. Navigating zoning constraints in proximity to a protected marsh required careful consideration of environmental impact assessments, community engagement and collaboration with regulatory agencies and stakeholders. The protected San Joaquin Marsh hosts several important wetland habitats and provides a stopover for migratory birds. To ensure that the project does not harm the marsh, the design-build team worked with stakeholders to position the buildings appropriately, create buffers and safety measures to protect the animals, and guarantee that any runoff from the site will not harm the local ecosystem. In fact, by working with UCI biologists, the medical center’s design will provide much-needed purified runoff water to support the wetlands. The project adheres to the zoning regulations by striking a balance between responsible land use and protecting natural habitats and ecosystems.

Completion Date:     6/2/2025

Square Footage:      610000

Building Use:           Medical Center

Location:                 Irvine, CA

CO Architects

None.

UCI Health

University of California, Irvine

TK1SC, MEP Engineer

Stantec, Civil Engineer

Degenkolb, Structural Engineer

Langan, Geotechnical Engineer

Ridge Landscape

Hensel Phelps

Studio K1, Lighting Designer


SKA Design, Environmental Graphics


Newson Brown, Acoustical Consultant

Kilograph