The American Institute of Architects (AIA) Academy of Architecture for Health (AAH) has announced four recipients of the AIA National Healthcare Design Awards program. The awards program highlights the “best of healthcare building design and healthcare design-oriented research” that exhibit “conceptual strengths that solve aesthetic, civic, urban, and social concerns as well as the requisite functional and sustainability concerns of a hospital”.
The AIA National Healthcare Design Award recipients are:
Category A: Built, Less than $25 million in construction cost
Willson Hospice House; Albany, GA / Perkins+Will
Phoebe Putney Memorial Hospital’s (PPMH) new 18-inpatient Willson Hospice realizes a golden opportunity to expand its outreach in southwest Georgia. PPMH channeled 25 years of affection for its 11-county travelling home care hospice program into the creation of the 34,000-square-foot community magnet. Sensitively building upon the educational and recreation appeal of its new sustainable campus of 210 forested acres, Willson reinvigorates traditional relationships between patients, families, staff, donors, volunteers, visitors, and the larger neighborhood in a new holistic healthcare model. The design creates an approachable welcoming facility that extends built fingers into the therapeutic landscape. The LEED Silver building is also the first healthcare facility ever designated an Audubon International Signature Silver Sanctuary.
Category B: Build, More than $25 million in construction cost
Massachusetts General Hospital – The Lunder Building; Boston / NBBJ
The Lunder Building is a high-tech, flexible structure designed to advance Massachusetts General Hospital into a third century of care. The 535,000-square-foot building houses procedural programs, 150 inpatient beds, progressive technologies, and new emergency and radiation oncology departments. Located on a compact urban site in downtown Boston, the building, split into a procedural program base and an upper bed tower, links five adjacent facilities. A key design element was connections to natural light and gardens: a five-story atrium garden connects all patient floors. The clinical planning reflects a commitment to performance-based design, a process utilizing research to reduce falls and injury; minimize medical error and infection; improve staff productivity and communication; and enhance patient and family healing, comfort, and satisfaction.
Category C: Unbuilt
Kenya Women and Children’s Wellness Center; Nairobi, Kenya / Perkins+Will
Located on the campus of the United States International University, the Kenya Women and Children’s Wellness Centre will be a state-of-the-art healthcare facility. The project is comprised of several facilities in a campus setting that share a common goal of advancing wellness in the community. The program includes a 170 bed hospital, Women and Children outpatient clinics, an Institute of Learning, Gender Violence Recovery Center, Family village and a Forensics Laboratory. The buildings’ design and massing responds to the construction methods and climate in Kenya. The linear bar buildings are oriented east/west to minimize heat gain. Large overhangs on the north/south facades accommodate sun-shading, solid east/west end walls minimize direct solar radiation. Taking advantage of Kenya’s temperate weather, the buildings are naturally ventilated.
Category D: Innovations in Planning and Design Research, Built and Unbuilt
National Intrepid Center of Excellence (NICoE); Bethesda, MD / SmithGroupJJR
This new global center of excellence is designed to advance the research, diagnosis, and treatment of traumatic brain injury (TBI)—a complex injury that results in a broad range of cognitive, physical and psychological disabilities—post traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and other complex psychological health issues. The NICoE was designed around a new operational model in rehabilitation medicine that focuses care around the patient, using a multidisciplinary clinic concept that seamlessly integrates next-generation clinical and research technologies, including advanced imaging and virtual reality environments, as well as deeper family involvement. The Center is a prototype for similar military and civilian TBI centers worldwide, and will serve as the primary hub of a network of satellite clinics now under development.
Jurors for the 2012 National Healthcare Design Awards:
- Jocelyn Frederick, AIA, (Chair), Tsoi/Kobus & Associates
- John Castorina, AIA, RTKL Associates, Inc.
- R. David Frum, AIA, Clark/Kjos Architects
- Anthony Kelly, AIA, The Shore Health System
- Susan Lipka, The University of Texas M. D. Anderson Cancer Center
- Steven Steinberg, AIA, Ratcliff Architects and Bobbe Young, Steffian Bradley Architects
All images and project descriptions were provided by the AIA.
