Access Dental

Wanting to centralize his company’s California operations into one complex and celebrate his passion for early 20th century modern architecture, the owner of Access Dental challenged the design team to create a facility rich with geometric exploration that would create a strong corporate image and portray an attitude about the company’s place in the modern world.

From a constructability standpoint, one of the major challenges of this project was the integration of the vast array of exterior building components chosen for the project. The use of natural stone tiles imported from India, aluminum paneling systems and glass features created a complex puzzle that demanded a high degree of attention to detail in order to achieve the intent of the design while maintaining the project schedule.

All floors of the Class A office building are connected by an open stairway contained in a glass-enclosed outdoor room with 180-degree views to the courtyard, entry plaza and distant Sierra Mountains. The major program components – board and conference rooms, entry lobby, lunchroom, and mail center – are articulated as separate volumes on the building’s elevations, which contributes individual character to the overall building form.

The architectural treatments used are painted Tilt-Up concrete panels, blue glass, dimensioned sandstone panels and an aluminum wall system. The gridded white concrete panels are parallel wall planes. All resources are located within a common core zone in each building that is encircled by offices, workstations and conference areas. The core zone is clad with rich wood-veneered panels from Tanzania, Africa, to mimic the building’s gridded parallel walls. The design solution created an efficient and collaborative organization.

“The composition of materials, colors, forms and surfaces creates a building that just makes you feel good about architecture,” said one judge, “regardless of what those elements are individually.” In addition, the spatial qualities around and through the mass of the building elements add to the overall project, and the architecture was focused in the right places.