In 2025, nonprofit community health provider North East Medical Services (NEMS) opened a Program of All-Inclusive Care for the Elderly (PACE) Center in San Jose, Calif. The project renovated a former single-story commercial shell into a comprehensive center for healthcare and wellness services for local seniors—earning the Transformation and Innovation Award in IIDA’s 2025 Healthcare Design Awards.
In delivering the new facility, the project team, including design firm IA Interior Architects (San Francisco), not only had to address the existing physical building conditions but also a patient population reluctant to seek care, says Kristoffer Tendall, design director at IA Interior Architects.
“From the beginning, a fundamental design driver was to elevate the experience beyond what the conventional expectations for elder care facilities currently are,” Tendall explains. “The mission of the PACE Center is to provide services that are culturally relevant but also preserve dignity, encourage independence, and support connection to local family and friends.”
Planning A New PACE Center In San Jose, California
The location of the 45,000-square-foot facility was strategically chosen in the heart of San Jose’s Vietnam Town, an area known for having the greatest number of Vietnamese residents in any city outside of Vietnam.
Focused on delivering a culturally responsive approach that resonated with San Jose’s diverse Asian population, the project team “developed a design narrative that deeply reflected the cultural values and identity of the local community,” says Tendall.
Specifically, the team embraced the Chinese philosophy of 天下 (Tiānxià), meaning “all under heaven,” a concept that encompasses equality and community and is understood across the cultures of China, Vietnam, Korea, and Japan. Tendall says Tiānxià is woven into the facility’s layout and aesthetic through organic forms such as recessed curved lighting and biophilic elements including low-maintenance, hypoallergenic foliage in the atrium.
Challenges Renovating Commercial Buildings Into Healthcare Facilities
One of the project’s main challenges was the building itself—specifically its lack of windows or skylights. To create a space that felt bright and restorative, the team cut a skylight through the existing roof to illuminate the atrium with daylight. Key program elements, including physical therapy, a multipurpose room, and café, are thoughtfully arranged around the atrium to bring natural light into public spaces.
The NEMS PACE Center includes medical exam suites, memory care rooms, a physical and occupational therapy wing, blood-draw stations, provider pods, and administrative spaces. Additionally, multiple acupuncture rooms are incorporated into the facility where patients can receive the Traditional Chinese Medicine service.
Amenity spaces further support the social and emotional well-being of patients, such as a media lounge for watching dramas and singing karaoke.
Cultural Design Strategies For Healthcare
Tendall says the project exemplifies how to incorporate cultural relevance into facility design as well as challenges conventional approaches to care facilities for seniors.
“What I find most inspiring about this project is the reminder that care facilities do not need to feel sterile and cold,” Tendall says. “This has become a space that a community who had sometimes been hesitant and resistant to accessing care now seeks out as a place they want to be and share with family. A care facility can have a nursing station and a karaoke room. An exam room and a garden. It can serve the body and the soul.”
Read more about biophilic design here.
April Shernisky is executive editor of Healthcare Design and can be reached at [email protected].
