Two SmithGroup projects win National Design-Build Awards: Healthcare and Research projects honored

Two SmithGroup projects were recently honored with National Awards of Excellence from the Design-Build Institute of America (DBIA): the Sharp HealthCare Ocean View Tower was honored with both national Healthcare Facility and the 2019 Design-Build Project of the Year; the University of California, Riverside Multidisciplinary Research Building in the national Industrial/Process/Research Facilities category.

Each year, DBIA recognizes National Design-Build Project/Team winners that exemplify the principles of Design-Build Done Right, DBIA’s best practices to ensure successful team collaboration and execution of design-build projects. 

The Sharp HealthCare Ocean View Tower, designed and built in collaboration with Hensel Phelps and AVRP Studios, is a seven-story inpatient bed tower that is the first step in realizing the Sharp HealthCare Chula Vista Medical Center Master Plan and meeting the hospital’s need for additional beds and operating rooms.

Located in southern San Diego County, the design places patient rooms to take advantage of light and views to the east and west. To further elevate the experience, the hospital “redefined dining,” located the servery on the top floor, providing indoor and outdoor dining with 270-degree views of the Pacific Ocean and chaparral-covered hills.

As Architect of Record, SmithGroup provided architectural design, interior design, medical planning and building envelope design from its Los Angeles office. Early collaboration eliminated the need to obtain deferred approvals, allowing the project review schedule to be reduced by six months, and enabling construction to start one year ahead of time. Design-Build best practices such as colocation, collaboration, effective communication and a strong team dynamic enabled the Hensel Phelps | SmithGroup team to deliver a successful world-class facility that supports Sharp’s commitment to being a High Reliability Organization (HRO). 

The University of California, Riverside Multidisciplinary Research Building (MRB) was designed and built in collaboration with Hensel Phelps and creates a new cross-disciplinary research hub for life/chemical sciences, medicine and engineering on the UCR campus. The building centers around gathering and interactive areas with a communicating stair in a central four-story open atrium that connects the laboratories and offers access to collaboration zones. The LEED Platinum research facility is the first to achieve this credential on the UCR campus. 

MRB features critical environments in high demand by researchers, including an imaging suite, a multi-species vivarium, and an interdisciplinary space for quantitative modeling. Researchers in life/chemical sciences, medicine and engineering work side-by-side on neurodevelopment disorders, infectious diseases and other multidisciplinary areas of study. MRB builds in the flexibility to create incubator spaces and other services as potential income generators for the University. It is a building designed for a transformative world of research—an engine for change that elevates UC Riverside to a new level of respect as a growing research hub.

SmithGroup’s Los Angeles office provided full architectural, interior design and laboratory planning services. The design-build team was collocated from project inception and instituted daily site walks to facilitate consistent communication that allowed for impressive speed to market. From contract award to completion, the project was delivered in only 37 months.

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