The Big Wave Wellness Center is Phase 1 of the Big Wave master plan, a parent-driven nonprofit effort to build an enduring home and community for adults with intellectual and developmental disabilities. ACI provided architecture, interior design, project management, and agency management to bring the Wellness Center through to completion. The center delivers 38 affordable residences where adults with special needs can live with a measure of independence and full-time support, alongside indoor and outdoor communal spaces for dining, gathering, and enrichment, from art and music to exercise and quiet time. It sits beside the Big Wave Farm, where residents and neighbors grow and harvest goods for the local community and where future phases will add professional training and employment.

We inherited the project with its shell and functional layout already set. On a coastal site bordering protected wetlands and within a high-risk tsunami zone, our team threaded the needle to win County and Coastal Commission approvals while mitigating environmental impact, then resolved the inherited design’s constructability issues within the existing shell so every system worked, the kind of continuity that turns a difficult site into a place built to last.

With an exterior rooted in coastal craftsman, the interior concept is “Woven Wave,” inspired by the local elements of sand, sea, cliffs, and trees and by the interconnectedness of a community within a community. In a contemporary coastal-cottage style, the palette is casual, light, and airy: soothing earth tones accented with blues and greens, built on pebbled patterns, large-format stone tile, cork, and wood looks. Across these materials, the patterning interprets the repetition of waves crashing and the interconnectedness of community through selections that are organically graphic.