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Roman travertine makes medical center a "pillar of strength": Ambra Light travertine--quarried in the Tivoli region of Italy--was chosen for the exterior of the Ronald Reagan UCLA Medical Center for its aesthetic qualities as well as the flexural strength to meet California's latest seismic safety requirements.

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Approximately eight years in the making, the Ronald Reagan UCLA Medical Center is the largest building ever built in the University of California School System. The facility comprises 10 stories--eight of which are above ground--and includes 1 million square feet of space that sits on 4 acres at the southwest corner of Westwood Plaza and Charles E. Young Drive South in Los Angeles, CA. And despite the massive size of the new medical center, the unique design, which was developed by world-renowned architect I.M. Pei and his son, C.C. Pei of Pei Partnership Architects in New York, creates the illusion of several smaller hospitals instead of a single overwhelming structure. The exterior is built of more than 3 million pounds of Ambra Light travertine--imported from Tivoli, Italy--contributing to the high-quality look of the facility.

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While Pei Partnership Architects designed the exterior envelope and public spaces of the Ronald Reagan UCLA Medical Center, Perkins + Will--named the world's leading healthcare architect by World Architecture Magazine, served as Executive Architect and designed the medical and patient-focused interior spaces. The hospital encompasses the operations of the Ronald Reagan UCLA Medical Center, the Stewart & Lynda Resnick Neuropsychiatric Hospital at UCLA and the Mattel Children's Hospital UCLA. There are four hospital entrances to serve distinct patient populations, and a wide corridor interconnects the lobbies to allow people to navigate easily around the facility.

"The real challenge for us in terms of the design was to fit this enormous building into a very congested campus," said Partner-in-Charge C.C. Pei, who worked on the project along with Lead Designer Ralph Heisel. "We were trying to keep it a building that would preserve the scale of the campus without appearing overwhelming in size. It was a true urban design challenge."

The first three floors form a base that unifies the design, while five towers break up the building's mass. Three quarter-round-shaped towers house patient rooms, while two triangular towers house Intensive Care Units. The towers are arranged so windows do not look directly in on each other, allowing light to spill in from all sides and open up views.

In addition to taking into account the facility's large size, the architects...

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