DOWNEY, CA — The American Institute of Architects (AIA) has recognized the Rancho Los Amigos National Rehabilitation Center in Downey, California, in its 2021 Healthcare Design Awards program. SmithGroup led the development of a master plan, architectural and interior design for the complete transformation of the campus, creating a holistic, human-centered environment for wellness, supported by executive architect Taylor Design.

Each year, the AIA Healthcare Design Awards showcase the best of health care building design, planning, and research. The projects honored are designed to help solve aesthetic, civic, urban, and social challenges while also being functional and sustainable.

Rancho Los Amigos has seen many incarnations in its century-long history, and today is known as a premier recovery and rehabilitation center for patients with spinal cord and brain injuries. Once threatened with closure, the campus focuses on creating an inclusive community supported by its design.

Drawing inspiration from a historic Mission Revival building on the site, new and renovated structures are placed around a central plaza defining a new heart of the campus. Accentuating the now cohesive campus and providing a wayfinding cue, a 107-foot tower gestures to this history while bringing in modern textural elements. Buildings are clad in an undulating, perforated metal scrim reminiscent of the massive orange groves that once dominated the site.

Designed as an indoor-outdoor recovery zone, treatment extends beyond the walls of the hospital facilities. Expansive, dual-purpose outdoor rooms double as rehabilitation spaces, laced by a ribbon of healing gardens and terraces, large plazas, and amphitheaters. The materiality of the exterior, the looping pathways of the gardens, and finishes in the interior are a subtle nod to the weaving art therapy that was once synonymous with Rancho.