Project Data:

Completion Date:     12/7/2020

Square Footage:      46353

Building Use:           Hospital Administration / Support Services Building

Design Architect:      Taylor Design

Project Description:

Founded in 1888 in Downey, California, Rancho Los Amigos National Rehabilitation Center (RLANRC) is a world-renowned hospital that provides specialized care to individuals suffering from spinal cord injury, stroke, brain injury, and other neurological disorders. It is one of the largest rehabilitation hospitals in the United States, with approximately 4,000 inpatient and 71,000 outpatient visits each year.

As part of a five-year-long campus revitalization, four buildings were either decommissioned or demolished as part of make ready work. This triggered the need to relocate 11 administrative departments that were dispersed among the campus, and inspired the idea of a centralized workplace, with the 67,000-square-foot, two-story Support Services Building selected as its location.

From the hospital’s earliest days where the art of textile was incorporated into Occupational Therapy rehabilitation regimen, doctors and therapists used rug, chair and basket weaving to help rehabilitate patients as a method of treatment for the body, mind, and soul. Woven art therapy provided patients with a great deal of pride, increased self-esteem, and united, not only the patient and caregiver, but integrated patients with the surrounding community at RLANRC. It was from this inspiration that “Tapestry as a metaphor” took form, driving the design direction.

Knots, threads, colors, and fibers are intricately woven into a texture that reflects the roots of the RLANRC therapy and this metaphor creates a pattern of connectivity. The design team drew many of its finishes from the stitching of artisanal tapestries and the deconstruction of textile art. The warp and weft – the two basic components of weaving – are celebrated throughout the space. These threads represent the patient, caregivers, physicians, doctors, and therapists, that unite the rehabilitation process.

Overlapping terrazzo flooring reveals weave a pattern through public spaces with looser reveals tightening their overlay as they culminate at main points of circulation. In approaching the central stair and main circulation area between floors, the floor reveals become tighter suggesting the connectivity of staff at the heart of the building. The stair’s large format ceramic tiles rise vertically to meet the second floor, with a tightly stitched pattern.

Common space design elements compliment the main stair features with a more delicate approach to the tight knit ceramic tile patterning, through frosted glazing, threads are expressed with negative space, offering the needed privacy to shared conference and consult spaces. Department storefront entries received a similar treatment.

The building is bordered by a parking structure that runs the length of the south side so the design team found a way to introduce daylighting by way of incorporating solar tubes above the central stair. By also opening the stair’s solid surround, the team was able to capitalize on the natural light, spilling into the core of the building.

Ultimately, by extending the revitalized RLANRC design theme into and throughout the SSB, the design team created a more functional, welcoming environment for staff to provide essential administrative tasks.