WRD Architects partnered with Salinas Valley Memorial Healthcare System to design a two-story medical office building, complete with lush landscaping throughout the site—including mature olive trees at the front entry and a rooftop garden accessible to all building users. The ground floor houses a physical therapy suite, which includes an MRI unit and a therapy spa. The upper floor features nurse training and administrative areas, along with a state-of-the-art clinical simulation lab. This lab includes a control room, two simulation rooms, and debriefing areas.

“Simulation has been used for many years in aviation, the military, and in medicine,” said Rachel Failano, RN, MSN, Clinical Nurse Educator and Clinical Simulation/Skills Lab Coordinator. “But it is new territory for nursing—especially in a non-teaching hospital setting. It adds an entirely new dimension to learning. We can recreate specific patient care environments and scenarios using high-fidelity human simulators instead of real patients, allowing us to practice the most effective and safest responses in a variety of situations.”

Outside the facility, bio swales, treatment systems, sediment filters, and grease interceptors were designed to manage and treat stormwater runoff from the parking areas.

Working with Salinas Valley Memorial Healthcare System, WRD Architects designed a state-of-the-art medical office building that now houses the largest private primary care physicians’ group in Monterey County. The 45,000-square-foot facility transformed a vacant three-acre lot into a fully landscaped property, complete with an underground 16,000-cubic-foot stormwater treatment system.

The two-story building features a large, covered entry, an atrium lobby, a roof deck, and outdoor seating. Inside, an innovative floor plan includes sky-lit nurses’ station modules surrounded by exam rooms, efficiently connecting patient care areas with laboratory facilities, conference rooms, and treatment areas.