Kaiser Permanente Watts Medical Offices and Counseling and Learning Center, Los Angeles
In 2018, a community improvement and advocacy collaborative called Watts Rising was formed with a mission of revitalizing the Los Angeles neighborhood of Watts. Healthcare organization Kaiser Permanente (Oakland, Calif.) had operated the Watts Counseling and Learning Center (CLC) in the neighborhood since 1967.
Recognizing an opportunity to be a part of these new efforts, Kaiser Permanente met with community leaders, who stressed the need for medical services to address a disparity in care access to care in the neighborhood, which doesn’t have a full-service hospital, says Long Kim Duong, senior director of national facilities design and construction at Kaiser Permanente.
Looking to deliver on that need, Kaiser Permanente considered renovating the existing CLC to house medical services, but the 1960s building lacked space for expansion. Instead, the decision was made to demolish the CLC, acquire an adjacent parcel of land, and build a new 60,000-square-foot center that combines medical offices with a new counseling and learning center.
To ensure the CLC could continue to provide services during the three years of demolition and construction, Kaiser Permanente renovated a former fire station as a temporary location.
Opened in February 2024, the Kaiser Permanente Watts Medical Offices and Counseling and Learning Center is double the size of the previous facility.
Combining two facilities in one building with separate entrances, the medical side houses a pharmacy, primary care, family medicine, behavioral health, lab, imaging, and clinic services, while the CLC includes community rooms, counseling services, and a preschool.
Facade design for community clinic
Kaiser Permanente wanted the design of the building to express a sense of “coming together,” bridging social services, childcare, and healthcare that welcomes all, Duong says. “Most of our facilities are either medical or they are community-based, but they’re not together,” he says.
To express that theme, architecture and design firm Perkins&Will (Los Angeles) designed the 3-story building to appear to fold together with a diagonal third-story volume that sweeps across the medical office side and straightens out where it connects with the CLC, “creating a unified, sculptural form,” says Yan Krymsky, design director, Perkins&Will (Los Angeles). Additionally, the building form steps back from the sidewalk at each story to break down the scale.
Tina Giorgadze, associate principal at Perkins&Will and project designer, says the project team also sought to capture the spirit and resilience of the Watts community, referencing events like the 1965 Watts uprising, a series of riots in the neighborhood stemming from tensions with law enforcement.
“We envisioned this building and the interior as a kind of geode, which if you crack and open up, exposes all these vibrant colors and beautiful layers,” Giorgadze says. “It’s a metaphorical representation of the Watts community because the community has been through a lot of turmoil over the years and yet is more vibrant as a result.”
Colorful interior design
Mimicking that metaphor, the exterior features elongated white stucco volumes that break away, exposing vibrant colors on each end, where transparent, glazed orange fritted glass panels are featured.
The geode-like color scheme continues on the interior of the building, where neutral grays are accented with bold, vibrant colors such as orange, red, and yellow to denote key areas such as clinic entrances and waiting rooms.
Colorful furniture and carpet tie into the color schemes, further serving as intuitive wayfinding, Giorgadze says, with brighter and lighter yellows and oranges progressing to deeper and darker reds and blues as visitors navigate the facility.
“It all goes back to the geode—this unique stone that maybe has a bit of a rough shell, that’s waiting to be opened and discovered with all of this beauty inside,” Giorgadze says.
Kaiser Permanente Watts Medical Offices and Counseling and Learning Center project details
Location: Los Angeles
Project completion date: February 2024
Owner: Kaiser Permanente
Total building area: 60,000 sq. ft.
Total construction cost: $90 million
Cost/sq. ft.: Not disclosed
Architect: Perkins&Will
Interior designer: Perkins&Will
General contractor: Swinerton Builders
Engineer: John A. Martin & Associates (structural), TK1SC (mechanical, plumbing), DPB (electrical)
Lighting designer: HLB Lighting
Art consultant: Kevin Berry Arts
Medical equipment planner: Perkins&Will
Carpet/flooring: Mohawk Group, Shaw Carpet
Ceiling/wall systems: Armstrong Ceiling
Doors/locks/hardware: AD Systems, DIRTT, Assa Abloy
Fabric/textiles: Designtex, Momentum, Carnegie
Furniture—seating/casegoods: Steelcase, Haworth, Stylex, OFS, Allermuir, Peter Pepper Products, Clarus, Arcadia Contract, KI, Nemschoff, Kimball
Lighting: Axis Lighting, Nextek, Lightnet, Axo Lighting, Lightonia, Lumentpulse, Ligman Lighting, Targetti, Neri
Signage/wayfinding: SKA Design
Surfaces—solid/other: Wilsonart, Corian
Other: System Source, BKM Office Environments
Project details are provided by the design team and not vetted by Healthcare Design.
Robert McCune is senior editor of Healthcare Design and can be reached at robert.mccune@emeraldx.com.