Translating Discovery to Therapy
UC San Diego Health, Moores Cancer Center
Healthcare
Moores Cancer Center—the only National Cancer Institute-designated Cancer Center in the San Diego region—is a multidisciplinary facility dedicated to providing best-in-class basic science, translational science, and clinical service. The facility includes space for clinical care, basic research, cancer prevention and control, and administration departments. It consolidates existing programs that were previously scattered across the UC San Diego campus, bringing researchers, clinicians, prevention specialists, and educators under one roof in a “bench-to-bedside” approach to conquering cancer.
The clinical care program brings together exam and procedure rooms, radiation oncology, infusion and chemotherapy suites, imaging, physician offices, and supporting spaces. Wet laboratories, laboratory support, and offices shape the core of the basic research program, fostering direct connections between discovery and treatment. Cancer prevention and control is anchored by administrative space that supports clinical trials, community outreach, and education initiatives, with adminstration at the heart of the facility.
Patients receive all their outpatient care within one facility, helping to ease the stress and strain on themselves and their families. A Cancer Commons and outdoor gardens create spaces of varying size and character to support interaction among faculty and students while providing calming environments for patients before and during treatments.
Location
La Jolla, CA
Square Feet
270,000
Completion date
2005
Project Component
Architecture Services
Interior Design & Space Planning
Moores Cancer Center comprises two structures—a three-story clinical services and administrative / educational facility along with a five-story research center—that share a common base. By combining a series of smaller elements, each with differing heights and mass, the design team created a village atmosphere rather than a monolithic building. The distinct structures accommodate the highly specialized space types required for the research, clinical, vivarium, and office programs, while the unifying base physically and conceptually provides programmatic interconnections between the two buildings.
The main entrance is through a three-story lobby space, where a concierge desk provides visitors with immediate orientation within the building. The glazed curtain wall frontice of the lobby space provides a view into the building lobby and bamboo garden beyond. The first floor is organized to provide direct paths from the main entrance lobby to the lobby / waiting areas for each clinic.
The education program elements are located directly off the lobby and organized around a central space that includes the bamboo garden on the ground level and the Mesa, a second level outdoor space for dining and interaction. The Mesa can also be used for large outdoor functions, or as a pre-function space for events held in the auditorium.
The clinical spaces are organized on the west side of the bamboo garden along a public “main street”. The garden provides intimate spaces for infusion and chemotherapy patients, and a calming environment for patients and their visitors outside of the clinical waiting areas. It also acts as a landing between public space and private laboratory functions.
On the east side, separated by the open space to the garden below, is the second level of flexible research laboratories. The laboratories on the second floor are essentially repeated on floors three, four and five. The space is organized around a corridor with office functions to the west and laboratory support modules to the east. A ghost corridor provides circulation within the laboratory unit.
The exterior of Moores Cancer Center integrates six different finishes, including iridescent, acid-etched, stainless steel shingles.
A series of healing gardens, such as the Bamboo Court, are designed to sensitively relate to the needs of staff and patients.
