Mammoth Medical Center to Open This Year

UCLA's $670 Million Complex Clad in Imported Stone

The eight-story Ronald Reagan UCLA Medical Center building is wrapped in 18,000 travertine panels, which were taken from the same quarry in Italy as the stone used on the Getty Center in Los Angeles. When it is completed next month, the project will have used an average daily manpower of about 750 workers and consumed 70,000 cu. yds. of concrete, 26,000 tons of structural steel and 1.7 million lbs. of duct.

By Greg Aragon

PHOTO BY GREG ARAGON.

The new $670 million Ronald Reagan UCLA Medical Center nearing completion in Westwood is trying to balance a strong design statement with a practical, healing environment.

"Usually hospitals are not given a lot of attention in terms of design," architect Olive Schroeder, a senior associate with Los Angeles-based RBB Architects, said about the 1.3 million-sq.-ft. hospital that is scheduled to open in December. "They are very functional."

Designed by the architecture team of Chicago-based Perkins & Will (executive architects); I.M. Pei, Architect and Pei Partnership Architects (design architects), both based in New York; and RBB (consulting architect), the eight-story building is wrapped in 18,000 travertine panels, which were taken from the same quarry in Tivoli, Italy, as the stone used on the Getty Center in Los Angeles. The 40-in. sq. panels are covered with eye-catching gray-green and white veins.

"The most unique feature of this building is the exterior façade," said Bert Hurlbut, construction manager working for University Construction Management Team, a joint venture between the Los Angeles offices of Turner Construction and URS.

"Hospitals typically do not use stone for the facade," Hurlbut added. "Most hospitals want the lobby to look like the [the historic Bonaventure Hotel in Los Angeles], they want the rooms to be like a Ramada and an exterior like a Motel 6."

Hurlbut said the elegant exterior caused problems when it came time to get the plan check reviewed and approved by OSHPD.

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"OSHPD has very little experience in stone facades," Hurlbut added. "The plan check process was started early and took longer than the building structure to get approved."

The exterior wall panels must comply with the critical performance standards in the 1998 California Building Code, which require that the exterior wall system be designed to withstand an 8.4-magnitude earthquake without significant structural failure or elements of the exterior cladding falling off the building. Additionally, the building and panels must be able to withstand winds of 70 mph and driving rain conditions.

The Sylmar-based joint venture firm of Tutor-Saliba-Perini, the project's general contractor, is responsible for erecting a 1.3 million-sq.-ft. medical center with 525 patient beds-including high-acuity and intensive care-and 65 observation beds. (photo by Greg Aragon).

Gerry MacClelland, senior project manager for UCMT, said that a full-scale mock-up of the exterior wall system was built at a testing laboratory in Los Angeles to duplicate these conditions, and the building went through extensive testing to assure there was adequate movement to the exterior wall with no resultant failures.

The new hospital broke ground in August 1999 and occupies a 4-acre site bounded by Westwood Plaza, Charles Young Drive, Gayley Avenue and existing medical buildings. The Reagan Center is 85-percent complete, Hurlbut said. Located just a short walk from the existing medical center, the massive new complex is already the dominant building in the southern part of the urban campus.

The $425 million project (pure construction cost) was undertaken to replace the 1951-built medical center, which is still recognized as one of the nation's best health care facilities but which was significantly damaged in 1994 by the Northridge quake.

"The current medical center no longer meets current building codes for hospitals," MacClelland said. "When evaluated by a team of engineers, they concluded that it would cost less to replace the hospital than it would be to repair the existing medical center to current codes."

The Sylmar-based joint venture firm of Tutor-Saliba-Perini, the project's general contractor, is responsible for erecting a 1.3 million-sq.-ft. hospital with 525 patient beds-including high-acuity and intensive care-and 65 observation beds. The major

components of the medical center include the Mattel Children's Hospital, Neuro Psychiatric Hospital, women's services department, diagnostics and treatment departments and faculty offices. Support services include clinical labs, a pharmacy, food-service kitchen for patients, cafeteria, central loading dock and 25 elevators.

Perkins & Will was responsible for the interior design for the patient areas. It also did the majority of the medical planning.

Gabrielle Bullock, Perkins & Will's project manager, said her highest hurdles on the

project were the rate at which technology changes and the coordination and implementation of imaging and surgical medical equipment systems.

One of 23 operating rooms at the new Ronald Reagan UCLA Medical Center that will start receiving patients in December (photo by Greg Aragon).

"Many of the systems we based the design on four years ago are obsolete by the time construction started," Bullock said. "For the [replacement hospital], we developed a coordination team comprised of the architect, medical equipment vendors, contractor, owner and construction manger." She added that the team meets weekly to address coordination issues and equipment requirements.

The decision to name the hospital after the 40th president came four years ago, after a group of private donors gave UCLA $150 million in Reagan's name.

The donation was the largest ever given to UCLA and is exceeded only by entertainment mogul David Geffen's $200 million donation to the medical school in 2002.

The remaining funds to pay for the clinic come from a variety of sources including FEMA; California Office of Emergency Services, for repairs resulting from the Northridge earthquake; and private donations.

When complete, the new medical center will have used an average daily manpower of about 750 workers and consumed 70,000 cu. yds. of concrete, 26,000 tons of structural steel and 1.7 million lbs. of duct.

The building's 23-ton moment structural frame had to be fabricated concurrently at five different fabrication plants because of schedule demands.

The project team also had to sift through 15 volumes of architectural documents and 1,500 sheets of drawings.

"It's an enormous set of drawings," RBB's Schroeder said. "If you make a change, it's a very complicated procedure, and there are about 100 people working on that set of documents, so every change has to be traced and documented."