Betty Ford Center, Residential Day Treatment Center

Project Details

Project Description

Approximately 90 miles east of Los Angeles in the desert town of Rancho Mirage, California, the Betty Ford Center (BFC) offers comprehensive chemical dependency treatment services, including inpatient treatment, outpatient follow-up care, and a Residential Day Treatment (RDT) program.

Moon Mayoras Architects was contracted to design BFC’s 67,380-square-foot Residential Day Treatment (RDT) Center, which houses transitional care for patients who have recently completed the inpatient program and wish to participate in a 30- to 90-day continued stay program before returning to their home environments. While enrolled in RDT, patients receive outpatient counseling and educational services while residing at nearby, BFC-owned, off-campus housing.

Self-contained at the east end of the BFC campus, where patients are transported by BFC directly to and from their off-campus housing, the RDT complex is comprised of six separate buildings, each containing a distinct component of the RDT program. Moon Mayoras Architects designed the facility using an internalized village concept, where each individual building acts as an integrated component of the RDT neighborhood. The buildings with frontage along the primary arterial access were designed as single-story facilities to preserve the residential scale and visual relationship of the adjacent neighborhood.

To provide shade from the extreme desert heat, Moon Mayoras Architects designed covered exterior pedestrian walkways, trellises, courtyards, and landscape features interconnecting each building. The entire complex incorporates desert themed architectural elements found in the surrounding Coachella Valley, and was designed to incorporate sustainable landscape features.