Adaptive Reuse of a 1950s Hospital Bed Tower for Cutting-Edge 21st Century Medical Research
Ted Hyman, FAIA, LEED AP® BD+C, ZGF Architects LLP
Phiroze Titina, AIA, NCARB, LEED AP BD+C, CDT, ZGF Architects LLP
The goal of this presentation is to show how a hospital medical tower, built more than 60 years ago, is being converted into a sustainable, high-performance, 21st century research facility.
The twelve-story South Tower (the former Medical Center Tower), which spans 443,387 gross square feet, is part of the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA), Center for the Health Sciences complex, which spans 2.4 million gross square feet, and includes the Schools of Medicine, Dentistry, Nursing, Public Health, Mattel's Children Hospital, and Neuropsychiatric Hospital. The South Tower was completed over two phases in 1951 and 1965. The tower's original use was as a hospital, with a nine-story bed tower above surgery, post-operation recovery, imaging, and pathology suites in the basement levels.
After the 1994 Northridge earthquake, damage assessment and engineering studies funded by the Federal Emergency Management Agency determined that the tower's structure was weakened. In response, UCLA developed a comprehensive strategy to create a replacement hospital on the campus, and to perform a seismic upgrade and renovation of the tower to house state-of-the-art research wet laboratories in support of the School of Medicine's research and educational programs. The renovation also brought the tower into compliance with current high-rise building codes, improved the thermal performance of the exterior skin, and upgraded all core and life safety infrastructure. Upgrading the structure and shell of the building to contemporary performance standards allows it to be repurposed for future generations.
The laboratory spaces are programmed to be generic and highly flexible environments that can function as wet bench, laboratory support, or dry laboratory space with quick and minimal build-outs. This approach allows the university to develop the building without the need to identify specific user groups and research programs that will be accommodated in the building. The revamped South Tower will be a key component in the restructuring of School of Medicine research programs, along thematic lines rather than by department.
The South Tower is not meant to house research teams or programs on a permanent basis, but is instead meant to be a temporary home to accommodate researchers whose programs are funded for specific durations. The tower will be the first research building on the campus to be developed like a developer speculative laboratory building, able to accommodate a wide range of research programs.
In addition to program flexibility and adaptability, this presentation will also show how the physical characteristics of the former hospital tower (narrow floor-plate, low floor height, continuous strip windows, and structural grid designed to accommodate patient rooms) have influenced the design of an efficient, high-performance, sustainable research building.
Biographies:
Ted Hyman is managing partner of ZGF's Los Angeles office. Focused on technical design and project delivery, he has led teams for many of the firm's most challenging and technologically complex projects, taking responsibility for the programming, management, coordination, production, and construction administration. Mr. Hyman has been responsible for guiding the design and implementation of a broad range of research facilities, hospitals, courthouses, and other civic buildings nationally, including the LEED® Double Platinum Donald Bren School of Environmental Science and Management on the University of California, Santa Barbara, campus, one of the first of 12 projects in the country to be LEED certified and one of the first two buildings in the country to achieve a Platinum rating. Mr. Hyman has a particular passion for integrated design and developing strategies for the integration of sustainable systems, materials, and technology.
Phiroze Titina is an associate partner in ZGF's Los Angeles office. Mr. Titina brings 14 years of professional experience in the planning, design, and coordination of a variety of complex facilities, including educational, civic, and corporate projects. As a project architect, he is responsible for the quality of design and construction documentation. A LEED AP, Mr. Titina has been involved in developing sustainability design concepts for many of the projects in the firm's Los Angeles office. He has assisted in implementing the practice's environmental ethic in its project delivery, as well as assisting in the coordination of the firm's environmental team effort and sustainable design continuing education series. Mr. Titina has worked across the office assisting project architects in creating a standard for the application of green building concepts in all projects.