Award of Merit, Health Care: VA Palo Alto Mental Health Center
Completed in June 2012, the Dept. of Veterans Affairs' $34-million, 91,000-sq-ft Mental Health Center complex in Palo Alto, Calif., centers on a secure activity courtyard and garden. A single-story inpatient building includes four identical 20-bed psychiatric nursing units, each with an open nurses station. The two-story outpatient services pavilion, with views of the interior courtyard, is at the entry side. A utility building is at the rear. A covered walkway encircles the main courtyard.
The single-story building is slab-on-grade with conventional timber platform framing and plywood shearwalls. The two-story facility uses structural steel framing and concentrically braced frames. For both, the exterior finishes are cement plaster and brick veneer matching the campus palette. The roofs are standing-seam metal on arched roof elements and single-ply TPO on flat roofs.