| Drawing inspiration from the form of a wave, a reference to the coastal community of Torrance, the graceful, curved façade of Lundquist Tower defines a new gateway to Torrance Memorial Medical Center and reinforces its presence to the surrounding community with a thoughtfully articulated and scaled building mass. Lundquist Tower’s metallic and glassy skin captures the subtle changes of the sky, making the aesthetics of this 24-hour facility an evolving phenomenon throughout the day. The innovative unitized building envelope system of rain-screen metal panel, glass and thin-set precast panels drastically reduced the envelope erection time by four months and greatly increases the durability of the building’s exterior envelope.
Lundquist Tower represents the future of patient care by increasing, consolidating and reconfiguring inpatient, outpatient and acute-care functions to better serve patients and staff. The new tower’s function is fully integrated with the existing facility through a network of precisely planned bridges and corridors connecting the old and new on multiple levels.
General services including patient admission, financial counseling and education are housed alongside diagnostic departmental functions including electrocardiogram (EKG), laboratory and x-ray. Decentralized nursing stations place nurses closer to their patients, with nursing staff and anesthesiologists co-located to facilitate patient and case review. Interventional radiology and perioperative services share a common prep and post-procedure patient area on the same floor.
Operating rooms are on average 35 percent larger than operating rooms in the existing hospital to accommodate the most advanced equipment. For clinical staff, patient care units are designed for fewer patient transfers. All patient rooms are private and are 30 percent larger than in the existing hospital. 112 rooms offer in-room dialysis and 88 patient rooms have built-in patient lifts.
Access to nature in the gardens and natural light create a sense of life and energy for patients and staff. A series of outdoor green spaces fills in the void between the existing hospital and the new tower and functions as a serene healing garden, enabling patient access to a protected outdoor space. The healing garden is designed to relieve stress and support the healing process by connecting patients, visitors and staff to nature and daylight. An outdoor staff lounge, large windows to the nursing area and pockets of outdoor atriums support healthy circadian rhythms for rotational shift workers.
Lundquist Tower was designed to achieve LEED Silver equivalency. The tower’s exterior skin is composed of unitized metal panel, thin-set precast concrete and a glass curtain wall system to optimize solar orientation and reduce energy consumption, while imparting a contemporary and elegant aesthetic to the tower. To optimize energy performance, high thermal mass material such as the precast concrete paneling system is used on high solar exposure sides of the building to absorb solar energy. On the cooler side of the building, the metal and glass wall system are used to harvest natural daylight and maximize views to the outdoors and nature.
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