Perkins Eastman, ForrestPerkins and IA Interior Architects collaborated to bring the Oak Pavilion to MarinHealth Medical Center in Greenbrae, California.

The new Oak Pavilion at MarinHealth Medical Center merges biophilic design with hospitality touchpoints to create a new patient experience. In order to comply with California’s seismic requirements for hospitals for 2020, the existing aging facility required new inpatient, diagnostic services, and emergency departments, as well as updated medical technology. Prioritizing input from administration, caregivers, and community, Perkins Eastman created a new building with patient, staff, and caregiver spaces that bring hospitality to the hospital.

The acute care hospital replacement houses most of the key diagnostic and treatment functions of the facility, including emergency, diagnostic imaging, and the interventional platform (surgery). Private rooms include 19 ICU beds, 7 NICU beds, 15 LDRP beds, and 74 medical/surgical beds.

Taking cues from its diverse regional ecosystem, the Oak Pavilion takes advantage of its picturesque hillside location in southern Marin County to create an indoor-outdoor environment where patients heal in nature. The result is a design that provides access to nature on all sides of the new building without sacrificing medical efficiency. The patient rooms, waiting areas, and lounges are organized around exterior gardens, views of Mount Tamalpais, the Corte Madera Creek wetlands, and the adjacent 27-acre park to maximize the patient and staff experience. The project reaches out to these landscapes through floor-to-ceiling windows in patient spaces, giant skylights above nurse stations, indoor-outdoor solariums, rooftop gardens, and an accessible sunken garden. The design also ensures that patients, their families, and staff have views to the exterior from any public corridor within the building. This ability to connect to the outside—no matter where one is in the building—orients users and provides a calming effect not found in typical hospitals.

MarinHealth Medical Center received an Award of Merit in the 2021 Healthcare Design Showcase, an honor which was celebrated in Healthcare Design Magazine’s August issue and will be featured at the Healthcare Design Expo & Conference this October.

Design: Perkins Eastman, ForrestPerkins and IA Interior Architects
Construction Manager: Vertran Associates
Photography: Tim Griffith