Visiting the doctor can be a stressful experience, but New York-based Alda Ly Architecture (ALA) is attempting to change that. That’s the idea behind Tia LA, a new women’s healthcare center that the firm designed in the Silver Lake neighborhood of Los Angeles. Located on the second floor of a two-story Neil Denari-designed building on Sunset Boulevard, the project “is at the intersection where all the cool things are happening in Silver Lake,” says Marissa Feddema, ALA’s director of architecture.
In a way, the commission was “selfish,” Feddema says, because ALA—which currently has an all-women staff—was essentially the target client. “Tia's mission is to create a very accessible space for women,” she says. “We got to create a space that we would want to use.” The staff talked through the process of their trips to the doctor or Ob-Gyn and pinpointed the moments of stress or awkwardness. The resulting 3,000-square-foot design aims to ease those tensions with colorful spaces featuring ample natural light, intuitive wayfinding, and opportunities for relaxation. Each exam room has a place for patients to stow their belongings and hold a cup of tea or a drink that they might bring into the room with them. “We wanted to show patients that we really designed the space for them,” says Alda Ly, ALA’s founder.
Clients arrive via the elevator or stairs at the center of the second floor, with a social space and reception area located under skylights. “It was really important that we created a space that felt welcoming and accessible and easy to navigate,” says Feddema. Tia’s in-house branding, which features brightly colored amorphous shapes, adorns the walls of the reception area in the back, which also has views of the Hollywood Hills. ALA riffs on those colors and forms throughout the rest of the clinic, with custom-designed rugs and pillows. “We wanted it to feel like you're in an immersive experience in the Tia brand, which is really bright and colorful and joyful,” Feddema says. “A lot of the shapes in the rugs and the furniture are softer and organic.”
A central east-west hall connects the individual spaces, with a classroom at the front overlooking Sunset Boulevard. Exam rooms are also located toward the front, with a wellness room closer to the public areas in the center and rear of the floor. “We wanted to make sure that there weren't any weird loops or dead ends or places that you get dropped when you come out of an exam room,” says Feddema.
Arches are a persistent theme in ALA’s work, and Tia LA is no exception. “The arches represent how we try to soften the spaces for the users,” Ly says. “They create these view corridors.” The arches also help frame a small retail display on the south wall of the reception area and a hospitality station in the hall between reception and the waiting room.
Despite the project's limited square footage, ALA was determined that Tia’s staff also have light-filled spaces: A staff lounge at the rear of the office opens to an outdoor deck, while the internal lab has windows that open onto the stairwell.
At Tia LA, Alda Ly Architecture has managed to be both minimal and playful in its design, and has achieved a thoughtful rethink of how to create a calming space for examinations and consultations that can be anything but.
