Bronze Award: Prebys Cardiovascular Institute

Prebys Cardiovascular Institute represents the first of a three-phase renovation on the Scripps Memorial Hospital La Jolla campus in San Diego. Designers with the Culver City, Calif., office of HOK architects were given the difficult mandate of integrating the project into the existing campus while developing “a new aesthetic” for the next phase of expansion.

This was done by using the same brick and metal materials found elsewhere on campus while adding a curved glass curtain wall on the new building's southeast side.

The seven-story 167-bed institute opened in March at a cost of $456 million. It includes 59 intensive-care beds, four operating rooms, two hybrid operating rooms, three cardiac catheterization labs and an electrophysiology lab connected to research labs.

The cardiovascular institute is the bronze-prize winner in this year's Modern Healthcare Design Awards. The facility is designed to be expandable and flexible. Room shapes and sizes are designed to accommodate changes in technology, and the infrastructure can accommodate connecting bridges to future neighboring buildings. There is room for a future first-floor emergency department. Four flexible, standardized room templates were designed as “procedural boxes” that can be adjusted for any purpose, said Alicia Wachtel, project director for HOK.

The building lets in large amounts of sunlight, has energy and water conservation features and is designed to attain LEED Silver certification from the U.S. Green Building Council. Structural support for patient lifts was built into every room, to improve safety for patients and staff.

Design Awards judge Rulon Stacey said this project was his choice to win the contest. He described it as having a “visually stunning exterior” as well as a “convenient” interior whose layout promotes staff efficiency. “California is a decade ahead of everyone in requiring value,” he said.

But Rebecca Hathaway, president of BridgeStar Consulting who also served as a judge, said she found the new facility difficult to navigate when she visited a friend having surgery there. On the other hand, “It is pretty,” she said.

Design Awards judge Agnessa Todorova said the facility is “well-planned. It had all the patient amenities we talk about.” Her complaint? “It looks like a hospital.”

Henry Chao, a principal with HOK architects in New York who served as a judge, did not vote on this project.