Clinical workflow
Room sequence, station sightlines, travel distances and the movement of staff, patients and supplies through a working day.
Healthcare · Clinics + Medical Offices
Designed by someone who has worked the shift, not just drawn the plan.
Medical offices, outpatient clinics, treatment suites and wellness environments across Los Angeles and Ventura County, planned with clinical experience inside the design team.
The idea
Most medical spaces are designed by people who have never worked in one.
A plan can meet every dimensional requirement and still be exhausting to work in. Rooms that are a step too far from the station, a door that swings into the transfer path, a sink placed where it interrupts the workflow, storage that forces staff to leave the room mid-procedure. None of these show up on a drawing. All of them show up on a twelve hour shift.
Apel Design performs architecture in association with Michael B. Maclaren, AIA, a registered nurse for more than thirty years alongside his architectural work. Clinical requirements enter the design as working knowledge rather than as a specification passed across from a consultant.
Knowledge + experience
What these buildings actually have to do.
Scope and licensing requirements vary by facility type, jurisdiction and the regulating agency.
Treatment and exam rooms
Equipment clearances, transfer space, sink placement, power and data at the point of use, and the door swing that does not fight the bed.
Infection control
Separation of clean and soiled routes, hand hygiene placement, surface selection, and finishes that survive hospital-grade cleaning.
Patient privacy
Acoustic separation between rooms, sightlines from waiting areas, discreet routes from reception to treatment, and HIPAA-conscious planning of reception and records.
Accessibility
Approach, entry, corridor width, exam room clearance and restroom dimensions resolved at plan stage rather than applied afterwards.
Equipment and systems
Medical gas, imaging equipment loads, shielding, dedicated power, ventilation and the structural consequences each carries.
Waiting and arrival
The part of the building patients actually judge: daylight, acoustics, seating that works for people who are unwell, and a check-in that is not overheard.
Staff space
Break areas, lockers, charting space and back-of-house circulation, which determine whether a practice retains the people who work in it.
The path
Understand the practice, then design the building.
Observe
Understand how this specific practice actually runs before committing to a plan.
Plan
Resolve workflow, clinical requirements and accessibility together at plan stage.
Coordinate
Integrate equipment, systems, licensing and code requirements with the architecture.
Deliver
Carry the design through permitting and construction to a working, licensable facility.
Questions
Useful clarity before the first conversation.
What makes Apel Design different for medical projects?
The architect of record on our projects has been a registered nurse for more than thirty years. That means clinical workflow is understood from the inside rather than gathered second hand, which changes what gets asked during design.
Do you work on outpatient clinics and medical offices as well as wellness facilities?
Yes. Medical offices, outpatient and treatment suites, therapy and wellness environments, and senior living and memory care all sit within this work.
How do accessibility requirements affect a medical building?
Heavily, and early. Approach, entry, corridor width, exam room clearance and restroom dimensions are plan-level decisions. Applied late they cost area and compromise the result.
Who performs the engineering and licensed architectural services?
Architecture is performed in association with Michael B. Maclaren, AIA. Engineering disciplines are performed by licensed engineers of record, coordinated by Apel Design.
Why we are taking this work on
A need we can see from where we already stand.
Our communities need more of these facilities than exist. We have the clinical knowledge inside the studio and three decades of building experience around it, so opening this work up is less a new direction than an honest use of what we already have.
Built for medical use.
500 San Fernando is one of our commercial buildings, and the space within it was built for medical use. The requirements were the ones this work always brings: clinical planning, accessibility, privacy and the practical reality of how a treatment space is used day to day.
It is a straightforward demonstration that these requirements are already familiar. What is new is that we are pursuing this work deliberately rather than taking it as it comes.
Related capability
Accessibility and clinical knowledge run through all of this work.
Healthcare, senior living, affordable and multifamily projects share the same requirements: accessible routes, usable bathrooms, adaptable units and buildings that work for people whose needs change. The architect of record on our projects has been a registered nurse for over thirty years.
Related environments
Spaces built for how people use them.
Every image below is from an Apel Design project.