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A medical facility designed by GBJ Architecture of Portland has won a national award for health care facility design.

GBJ Architecture recently completed work on a 194,000-square-foot expansion of MultiCare Health System’s main campus in Tacoma, Wash. The Center for Healthcare Design has given the project’s design a 2010 Healthcare Environment Award in the Acute Care Category, according to Kim Ritter, an associate with GBJ Architecture.

GBJ’s project team focused on materials to create a hospital design that would be less cold and clinical, Ritter said. The project’s interior, which used wood and porcelain made to look like stone, are what won the company the award, Ritter said.

“With hospital design, everything has to be cleanable and durable,” Ritter said. “There’s tension between needing high performance surfaces and wanting an environment that’s soothing to patients. The materials we used give the facility a more approachable feel.”

Ritter and others on the design team have worked on this project for the past five years. The expansion included a new cancer center, new emergency department and an expanded pediatric emergency department, as well as an express care center.