UCI’s Medical Center Clinical laboratory Building Wins DBIA Award

The UCI Medical Center Clinical Laboratory Building in Orange, CA recently won a DBIA award making it ima’s second DBIA award winning project in as many years. As part of a master plan developed for the new UCI Medical Center, this five-story pathology laboratory and office building has a major support role on the campus providing reference lab services for medical institutions across the southern California region. The project consists of four floors of pathology laboratories and offices, with a fifth-floor shell space for future office development.

ima’s landscape design uses a planting palette comprised of low water consumption California native plants as well as shrub and tree plantings from the UCIMC Palette. ima used healing/herbal plantings to tie the Healing Garden to the new Hospital’s South Garden. The central plaza has groves of Ginkgo biloba trees offering shade in the summer and beautiful golden leaves in the winter. Within the planters are lavender, sage, and coral bells offering fragrance, color, and a soft touch. Along the East-West promenade are trees and colorful flowers including Wisteria vines trained to the buildings trellis. The busy freeway is filtered by trees and lined with shrubs and ground cover. An olive tree anchors the east side entry and a walk flanked by tufblock and lawn area to the north, offering fire vehicle access accented by medium sized evergreen Magnolia trees.

The facility is a LEED Gold and included some examples of the sustainable site features low volume drip irrigation with controlled spray connected to the existing campus control system with proper monitoring devices such as flow sensors, master valves and moisture sensing. Furthermore, the plants are grouped in “hydrozones” with similar water requirements allowing the water to be applied uniformly.

The other ima project recently winning a DBIA award is the LEED Platinum University of California, Irvine Engineering Unit 3. UCI Engineering Unit 3 won the 2011 National Design-Build Excellence Award for Educational Facilities. Led by Hensel Phelps Construction Co and Carrier Johnson Architects, Engineering Unit 3 was one of the top ten award winners for 2011.

___

ima creates exceptional spaces that give form and character to the landscape, providing distinctive artistry and economic value for our clients with Master Planning, Development Services and Landscape Architecture. We consult, collaborate, imagine and define a project’s scope and character – from retail and mixed-use destination to office developments and large scale master planning – to create exciting people-oriented environments. We have built our business on pushing the boundaries to create the right solution. We thrive in collaboration and believe that the right design is a balance between vision and reality. We strive to find this balance in a design that can transcend the value for our client to enrich the community experience.

At ima, we are artists and business people.

We have a gift of imagining beauty and crafting opportunities. We approach each assignment with a contagious enthusiasm. We bring depth of experience, from large-scale master planning and engineering, to product selection and site placement.

Landscape architecture is a professional discipline that combines the beauty of the natural environment with an ability to improve the communities and places where people congregate, interact and live. Our work amazes and entertains thousands of people a day.

We thrive in collaboration and are energized by new ideas. Our designs feature a strong concept, a good idea and a little soul. That’s why they endure and improve over time. And, that’s why our prestigious clients keep coming back.

We don’t believe in form without substance. Our work addresses not only site function, but also a greater, more spiritual element. We believe that landscape architecture enriches the human experience by making people feel good about their surroundings and in turn, about themselves. Imagine, if everyone felt better about themselves, how much more receptive and open they would be to explore and participate in a community experience whether in a shopping mall, a downtown streetscape or a tropical resort. And we believe if everyday our plazas, gardens and streetscapes move just a few people toward goodness, then we have truly succeeded.

ima
20341 Birch Street
Newport beach, CA 92660
Jason Gladding

This release was published on openPR.