Be Well Irvine Campus
Be Well Irvine
A Behavioral Health Campus Built on Reclaimed Ground
Origin & Vision
From Contaminated Land to Common Ground
On the site of a former Marine Corps Air Station in Irvine, California, the ground itself carries a history of transformation. Contaminated with PFAS compounds from decades of military use, the land needed environmental remediation before a single foundation could be poured. It was, in the words of those who built Be Well Irvine, a brownfield — scarred, sidelined, and in need of healing. It was also, for this reason, a perfect metaphor.
What emerged from that reclaimed soil is a comprehensive behavioral health campus: a first-of-its-kind facility in Orange County offering crisis stabilization, adult residential care, perinatal mental health services, and adolescent treatment — all on one campus, in one place where the community could finally turn for help.
Complexity & Perseverance
The Impossible Made Inevitable
The path to groundbreaking was anything but linear. The site sat at the intersection of county and federal land ownership, with parcels still in the process of being transferred from the Department of the Navy. Multi-agency jurisdictional complexity meant that navigating approvals required deep relationships. A third-party developer controlled the road and utility infrastructure the campus depended on — and delays in that infrastructure threatened to stall the entire project.
Funding came not from a single source but from meticulously assembled capital, drawn from multiple public and philanthropic streams. The team reached full funding before construction began — a milestone that, given the scale and complexity of the undertaking, represented a profound act of organizational will.
Clinical providers were not selected until late in the design process, creating a sustained period of uncertainty about who, exactly, would inhabit these carefully designed spaces. The team responded by conducting extensive research, visiting comparable facilities, and engaging a wide range of stakeholders — building a facility defined not by one provider's preferences but by a deep study of what behavioral health environments can and should be.
“There was always a sense of inevitability — that this was going to happen, no matter what. That commitment carried everyone through the hardest moments.”
Design Intent
Dignity as Architecture
The design of Be Well Irvine was shaped by a single, animating conviction: that people seeking behavioral health treatment deserve spaces that say, without ambiguity, that they are worthy of care. The facility's open lobbies, abundant natural light, and carefully curated materials were chosen not merely for aesthetics but for their capacity to communicate dignity — to counteract the stigma that too often surrounds mental health and substance use treatment.
Families were considered as intentional constituents of the design. Large, welcoming lobbies and a café create spaces where families can gather without feeling like visitors to an institution. Outdoor seating areas extend the welcome beyond the building's walls. The message is clear: families belong here, too.
As the project evolved, the campus plan was reorganized into distinct neighborhoods—one for community and outpatient programs, one for adults, one for adolescents and perinatal care—each with its own spatial character and programming logic. The decision to separate the adolescent program from the adult residential building came directly from stakeholder feedback, ensuring that each population could move through the campus on their own terms, with privacy and safety designed into the plan.
Warm design, open community.
Landscape & Art
Nature as Therapeutic Infrastructure
Outdoor access was treated not as an amenity but as a clinical necessity. Residents can move directly from their rooms into private or semi-private outdoor spaces — no supervision required, no institutional gate to pass through. The landscape was designed as a sequence of environments: intimate courtyards giving way to shared campus grounds, each zone anchored in Southern California's native biomes and plant communities.
Artwork was approached with equal intentionality. In partnership with KBAA and the landscape design team, the project curated works from local artists and photographers — people whose images resonated with the site, the region, and the stories of the communities the campus would serve. Landscape themes developed for each courtyard were carried into the interior through artwork and material choices, creating an environment where the inside and outside speak to each other in a continuous, healing dialogue.
“We wanted the art to feel like it belonged here — that it came from this place and was chosen for the people who would spend their time within these walls.”
Community Impact
A Facility the Community Trusts
One of the clearest measures of the campus's success came before it fully opened: local school counselors, after touring the facility, left with the confidence to recommend it to families. That moment — a counselor standing in the lobby and knowing they could send a student here — speaks to the project's deepest ambition. Be Well Irvine was never intended to be a facility that serves its patients in isolation. It was designed to become part of the community's support network, a place neighbors and schools and families could trust.
That trust was earned by design — not just in the spaces themselves, but in the years of commitment, the stakeholder engagement, and the clarity of conviction that carried this project from a contaminated former military base to a campus that stands, now, as a model for what behavioral health care can look like.
