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With only 230 interior square feet, the design team’s primary challenge was to create the illusion of a more spacious interior, while packing the required program for a fully operational dental studio into the trailer footprint, including a sterilization room, waiting area, and two operatories. Strategically placed mirrored strips in the corner reveals visually expand the space and reflect natural light. The material palette reinforces the office’s identity, with natural wood millwork, bright white surfaces throughout, and a custom perforation pattern that suggests a dense tree canopy. Rather than opening the side panels to potentially unattractive exterior environments, each operatory gestures to the sky, with 11-foot-plus ceilings and translucent solid surfacing sculpted skylights above the patient chairs, which deliver abundant diffused natural light, and also house TV monitors. The sterilization room is hidden behind millwork panels that wrap around to form the patient waiting bench with integrated tablet for patient forms and magazines. A centralized, double-sided millwork panel houses equipment for both operatories, while also concealing the sound system and HVAC unit. The 26-foot-long trailer’s exterior features reflective detailing that brings the same custom perforation pattern to the exterior panels, at once a memory of the original utilitarian trailer function, layered with the new use through the clients’ branding and imagery.
David Montalba - Born in Florence, Italy and raised in both Switzerland and California, David earned his Bachelor of Architecture at the Southern California Institute of Architecture and completed his Master of Architecture at UCLA. His diverse background as an architect includes over 23 years of professional practice with architectural firms in the United States and Europe. Believing that architecture can improve quality of life, his is a humanistic approach, which leads to solutions that are contextual, yet conceptual and visionary in their intent, affect, and appeal. This work has been recognized in various publications and with numerous awards, including the AIA’s National Young Architect Award in 2008, a 2011 AIA Institute Honor Award, and over 25 other design awards in the past 15 years.
As Founding Principal of Montalba Architects, Inc., David Montalba leads a diverse staff of over 30 creative professionals, working in close collaboration as design principal on each project. He takes immense pride in mentoring the office’s intern architects, from whose optimism and energy he draws constant inspiration. His commitment to remain close to both the design process and his staff, in spite of the pressures that accompany growth, reflects David’s passion for the human foundations of architecture.
Academic activities and community involvement are integral to David’s practice, as reflected in his participation in several architecture programs, including as an adjunct professor at UCLA’s Graduate School of Architecture, where he teaches. He has served as a Board Member and Treasurer of the Los Angeles chapter of the American Institute of Architects and an advisor to the AIA’s Academic Outreach and 2x8 Exhibition Committees. David has also served as a Board Member of the A+D Museum in Los Angeles. He is a registered member of NCARB and a licensed architect in the states of California, Florida, Wyoming, Nevada, Hawaii, Illinois, New Jersey, and New York, and in British Columbia, Canada.
