web stats

AIA honors top healthcare design across the country

UC San Diego Jacobs Medical Center won in Category B. (Photo courtesy of the AIA website.)

UC San Diego Jacobs Medical Center won in Category B. (Photo courtesy of the AIA website.)

UC San Diego Jacobs Medical Center won in Category B. (Photo courtesy of the AIA website.)

The American Institute of Architects (AIA) Academy of Architecture for Health (AAH) has selected the recipients of the AIA Healthcare Design Awards program. The award program showcases the best healthcare building design and healthcare design-oriented research. Projects exhibit conceptual strengths that solve aesthetic, civic, urban, and social concerns as well as the requisite functional and sustainability concerns of a hospital.

Recipients were selected in four different categories:

Category A – Built: Less than $25 million (construction cost)

Category B – Built: More than $25 million (construction cost)

Category C – Renovations/Remodeled: Primarily built within existing hospital or clinical space.

Category D – Unbuilt: must be commissioned for compensation by a client with the authority and intention to build.

Category A

Harvey Pediatric Clinic; Rogers, Arkansas

Marlon Blackwell Architects

Situated in a fast-developing area, the Harvey Pediatric Clinic is an abstract figure set in contrast to the excess of materials, weak forms, and beige tones that make up the everyday suburban landscape that surrounds the building. The cayenne-color metal panel wraps the entire south side of the building, providing a strong identity for the practice. Patients enter the building, pass through and ascend a stair that is washed in blue light from the skylight above. Sixteen exam rooms are organized along a simple, clear circulation path defined by several skylights that bring natural light deep into the building.

Neighborcare Health, Meridian Center for Health; Seattle

NBBJ

Partially funded by a federal grant, the Meridian Center for Health is a first of its kind: an integrated, one-stop model for health treatment and prevention for underserved Seattle-area residents. Uniting three health organizations under the same roof, the center provides low- to no-cost medical, dental, and mental health services for adults and children. Design elements include an open floor plan, a dramatic feature stair in the lobby, and a range of team and community spaces that remain available for neighborhood organizations after hours. The Center is tracking to receive LEED Gold certification.

Category B

Mercy Virtual Care Center; Chesterfield, Missouri

FORUM STUDIO  

The Virtual Care Center exemplifies this Catholic health system’s bold commitment to the future of healthcare. This first-of-its-kind facility advances Mercy’s mission of transformative care while dramatically improving outcomes through improved patient management. The design blends the built with nature through an authentic use of materials and space.  A palette of stone, glass, precast and wood coupled with flexible floor plates create an environment that fosters innovation, collaboration and patient centric care.  The Virtual Care Center, the genesis of a national consortium of virtual providers, pioneers a new model of care.

UC San Diego Jacobs Medical Center; La Jolla, California

Cannon Design

Reflective of UC San Diego’s vision toward the future intersections between technology and medicine, Jacobs Medical Center is designed as three hospitals in one with focus on women’s and children’s, cancer and specialty surgery. The tower is the cornerstone of a new campus identity focused on the future of health, pairing cutting-edge, modern medicine with best-in-class patient experience.

Category C

Advocate Lutheran General Hospital Cardiac Catheterization Suite; Park Ridge, Illinois

Philips Design and Anderson Mikos Architects

The design team worked closely with key stakeholders to achieve Advocate Health Care Heart Institute’s goal of improved customer experience, safety, and outcomes.  The new cardiac catheterization suite improves the way people receive care through the complete transformation of patient, family and staff experiences.  The resulting optimized flow and journey includes a transradial recovery lounge, labs that inspire confidence while improving safety, and a first-of-its-kind prep/recovery bay solution that enables a less stressful recuperation personalized for each patient.  The Advocate Experience has been redefined through the service and spatial design transformation for this Suite.

Bayshore Dental; Whitefish Bay, Wisconsin

Johnsen Schmaling Architects

This project is the ambitious reinvention of an abandoned building and its transformation into a state-of-the-art clinic for a young dentist and her small staff. The project’s rigorous architecture and meticulous details echo the ethos of the flawless efficiency, uncompromising precision and exacting purity at the center of the innovative dentistry performed here. Procedural flow strategies informed the clinic’s overall layout. A continuous ceiling plane leads patients from the light-filled reception to the individual operatories, each marked by green vertical panels and light strips that animate the clinic’s central corridor. White oak cabinetry and green accents complement the intentionally restrained interior palette, all contributing to a deliberately serene ambience intended to appease a sometimes-apprehensive clientele.

Category D

Ambulatory Surgical Facility; Kyabirwa, Uganda

Kliment Halsband Architects

This independent, off-the-grid ambulatory surgical facility is a replicable prototype for the five billion people in the world who lack access to safe or affordable surgery. The building is composed of three functional elements: a reception pavilion with offices grouped around a family waiting area courtyard, an intermediate pavilion for pre-op and post-op activities, and a sterile pavilion with two operating rooms and related support spaces. These elements are sheltered under a solar panel shade structure, inspired by the banana plants on the site.

The jury for the 2017 National Healthcare Facility Design Awards includes: Gregory Wieland, AIA (Chair) Altus Studios; Tama Duffy Day, Gensler; Rick del Monte, FAIA, BeckGroup; Robin Guenther, FAIA, Perkins+Will; John Kouletsis, AIA, Kaiser Foundation Health Plan Inc.; Joan L. Suchomel, AIA, Eckenhoff Saunders Architects and Stephen Yablon, AIA, Stephen Yablon Architecture.

About The American Institute of Architects

Founded in 1857, the American Institute of Architects consistently works to create more valuable, healthy, secure, and sustainable buildings, neighborhoods, and communities. Through nearly 300 state and local chapters, the AIA advocates for public policies that promote economic vitality and public wellbeing. Members adhere to a code of ethics and conduct to ensure the highest professional standards. The AIA provides members with tools and resources to assist them in their careers and business as well as engaging civic and government leaders and the public to find solutions to pressing issues facing our communities, institutions, nation and world. Visit www.aia.org.

Subscribe