Cuningham Group Architecture and CallisonRTKL has designed the Providence Health Services’ Providence Breeze Advanced Care Center located in Torrance, California.

The Providence Breeze Advanced Care Center opened in summer 2018 in Torrance, California, USA – on the former site of the Daily Breeze newspaper facility – with the City of Hope Cancer Center. Additional tenants will join the facility in 2019, all exhibiting advanced approaches to patient-centric care. Owned by Providence Health Services, the three-story, 106,000-square-foot (not including parking) Care Center will house a Women’s Center, Imaging Center, Ambulatory Surgery Center, Clinics, Medical and Surgical Oncology, Infusion Center and 2 Linear Accelerators. Cuningham Group Architecture is the executive architect and designer of tenant improvements, including all the interior medical facilities. CallisonRTKL is architect of record for the exterior core shell.

The facilities are patient-centric with core common areas and entries created for the public or patients. Staff arrives through other entries.

Rather than a traditional registration desk, the center offers a concierge desk – as in a hotel – with a person at a table or where guests can register on a kiosk. The front areas include a coffee shop.

Waiting areas are broken up into separate clusters. This creates a home-like, living-room feeling. Even the more clinical spaces emphasize warm, natural materials, with spaces that feel less like a hospital and more like hospitality design.

The Women’s Center component offers a resort-style approach, with a softer ambience and warm materials to diffuse the stress sometimes associated with mammograms and other treatments. Organic patterned screens in the waiting room hearken to biophilic design. Symbolic images of nature help to reduce stress. Purple accent walls provide an updated spa feel, and the fireplace is a nice touch to help ground a person.

This more home-like design – not harsh or sterile – extends throughout the entire complex.

Executive Architect and Designer: Cuningham Group Architecture
Architect of Record: CallisonRTKL
Photography: Derek Rath