The American Institute of Architects (AIA) recognized UC Davis Health’s forthcoming California Tower at the 2024 Healthcare Design Awards on June 8.
This accolade is the industry’s most prestigious award. It recognizes innovative projects in health care design that help solve aesthetic, civic, urban and social problems while also being functional and sustainable.
The California Tower was chosen as one of 11 honorees for its thoughtful and striking design as an anchor health care project for the Sacramento community. SmithGroup, the project architect, accepted the award on behalf of the project at a gala held at the historic Pension Building in Washington, D.C.
Jason Nietupski, executive director of Facilities Planning and Development, said, "This award is a testament to the hard work of a terrific team of designers, builders and the university working together synergistically to produce an amazing design and deliver a beautiful hospital tower to better serve UC Davis Health's patients and providers. The California Tower will provide advanced inpatient care to the Sacramento region for generations to come.”
Region’s most advanced medical tower
When completed in 2030, the California Tower, approved by the UC Board of Regents in January 2022, will be added to the eastern side of the existing UC Davis Medical Center. It will include a 14-story hospital tower and five-story pavilion, adding to a hospital complex that has served the neighborhoods at this location for more than 150 years.
The tower will add approximately 1 million square feet of space to the Sacramento campus. It will include new operating rooms, an imaging center, and new facilities for existing pharmacy and burn care units.
A key highlight of California Tower will be single-patient rooms. Private rooms, rather than the traditional two-bed design, are known to enhance recovery and healing, and help reduce infection transmission. The new tower will have approximately 350 private rooms for patients.
The adaptability of the patient rooms to meet a critical care surge means the new facilities – with the potential for temporarily creating 350 ICU rooms – will be positioned to meet regional needs for the next 50 years.
Crews are currently working on utility installations and tower coordination. The project has implemented valet parking for the Department of Emergency Medicine while work is starting in the emergency department parking lot. Work is being done on connecting the new California Tower to the existing Surgery and Emergency Services Pavilion and the basement excavation for the new tower. Major construction activities will start in the summer of 2024.
