Despite their amazing advances, most hospitals today still fail to make patients feel relaxed, or at times even human. One visionary hospital that long ago challenged that shortcoming is a midcentury masterpiece by Edward Durell Stone: The Community Hospital of the Monterey Peninsula, or as it is fondly called by locals, CHOMP. Stone’s Wrightian, ornamented-white-concrete Modernist structure, with its focus on natural light and views of the surrounding landscape of Monterey Pines overlooking the Pacific, was completed in 1962. The low-lying, orthogonal-planned complex has landscaped courtyards, a central fountain court, overhanging roof planes for shade, single-occupancy rooms with large windows overlooking the landscape, and large skylights, all bucking the then-emerging trend of new hospital towers and focusing on context rather than maximizing interior space. The hospital has undergone several small interventions and expansions, but almost 50 years after its opening, it needed a major update in size and technology. Following an extensive interview process, the hospital’s board chose HOK’s Los Angeles office for the task, asking the firm to maintain the character of the original design, which patients and the community have come to cherish.
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