Habitat Health PACE

In collaborating with Habitat Health and Kaiser Permanente on their new South Los Angeles PACE Center, Bergmeyer helped bring to life the organization’s first ground-up facility—and with it, their clearest expression yet of what comprehensive, community-rooted senior care can look like. The Program of All-Inclusive Care for the Elderly (PACE) offers an alternative to nursing home placement, enabling older adults to remain in their homes and communities while receiving the full range of medical, social, and personal support they need. At 14,000 square feet, the South Los Angeles Center puts that mission into physical form.

This project marked a pivotal moment for the client. Bergmeyer’s relationship with Habitat Health began with their first PACE center—an adaptive reuse project in Sacramento—where we supported them not only through design, but through programming, branding, and establishing the strategic vision for their program. When Habitat Health was ready to build from the ground up, they returned to Bergmeyer. That trust, built project to project, shaped everything that followed.

The primary objective was to realize the client’s ideal center. Designing on an open site gave the team a rare opportunity to shape both the building and the site from the start, creating a facility that feels genuinely rooted in the Compton community and for the people of South Los Angeles. The Center’s design reflects the PACE model’s defining principles—comprehensive, integrated, community-based, and person-centered care—in its layout, adjacencies, and finishes. Under one roof, participants access primary and urgent care through an onsite clinic, as well as specialty and hospital services through Kaiser Permanente’s regional network. Physical therapy, pharmacy, nutrition services, social programming, transportation, and in-home support are all woven into a single, coordinated experience. The design ensures that these services feel connected, not compartmentalized—because for the seniors who depend on this center, seamlessness is not a convenience. It is care.

Accessibility and wayfinding were central to every design decision. The environment is senior-friendly by intention: familiar, legible, and free of the institutional quality that can make healthcare spaces feel alienating. The goal was a place where older adults arrive and feel at ease. Thoughtful details carried through every room:

• The facility’s layout and finishes were designed to minimize confusion and disorientation, with simple tones, clear contrast between surface planes, and visual cues that support orientation for participants with cognitive impairments.
• Rather than treating the exterior as a conventional commercial facade, the building’s design embraces local California architecture—creating a presence in the neighborhood that is distinctive but not dissonant.
• Accessibility extends beyond the building itself: the center serves participants who rely on public transportation, coordinated medical transport, and community programs like Compton’s Dial-A-Ride—and the site was designed to receive them with ease.
• Social spaces are integral to the program, supporting the daily activities and community connection that are central to the PACE model’s proven impact on mental health, independence, and quality of life.

The Habitat Health South LA Center is where healthcare, community, and California design converge—a place built not just to serve older adults, but to honor them.