Academic medical centers face a persistent real estate challenge, often tying up valuable square footage on campuses with private physician offices that are remote or underutilized and can disconnect staff from patient care. Northwestern Medicine (Chicago) is pioneering a solution with its new Faculty Office Center, a membership model designed to replace traditional individual workspaces with a centralized, shared environment that’s integrated into the hospital.
Developed through extensive physician collaboration, the 20,000-square-foot project, submitted by CannonDesign (Chicago), serves as a rejuvenating sanctuary that prioritizes both productivity and well-being. Key design features of the project, which opened in January 2025, include reservable private offices and collaboration zones alongside wellness amenities such as meditation and sleep rooms, a fitness center, and café.
By trading isolated desks for a curated, nature-inspired destination, the health system enhances physicians’ daily experience while reclaiming crucial real estate to support growing clinical needs. The project took home the highest honor, the Award of Merit, in the 2026 Healthcare Design Showcase.
In this Q+A, Mark Hirons, principal, senior design leader, and Chris Lambert, principal, project strategy lead, at CannonDesign (Chicago), discuss rethinking physician workspace and planning the new amenity to support different work styles, productivity needs, and wellness priorities.
Healthcare Design: What overall goals/principles were outlined to help guide the project?
Chris Lambert: The Faculty Office Center grew out of Northwestern Medicine’s short-term needs to expand its clinical platform on a tight campus. The best strategic option for the expansion of patient care space involved the conversion of some departmental workplace. Recognizing that faculty are critical to the success of the organization, Northwestern leadership wanted to create a centralized workplace and wellness space drawing on input from faculty physicians.
The goal of this space was to create an accessible work environment with seamless integration into faculty workflows. Location mattered a lot. The Faculty Office Center is well-connected to inpatient and outpatient services within the Northwestern Medicine Streeterville campus.
HCD: What challenges did you face renovating existing administrative offices into a new amenity for faculty?
Mark Hirons: The area chosen for renovation was a prime, centralized location for physician faculty within the hospital, but it came with challenges associated with renovating an operational space with a lot of surrounding patient and staff traffic.
Another challenge was creating a mindset shift for those faculty members who had an assigned office and were used to personal workspace. We emphasized that the new Faculty Office Center would address a broader spectrum of wellness and productivity needs. Traditional assigned offices are typically not only far away from the care environment but also don’t come with amenities that the Faculty Office Center provides.
HCD: How did input from physician faculty on their work styles, productivity needs, and wellness priorities help guide the planning and design?
Hirons: We spent a significant amount of time with the faculty physicians to understand what would be most impactful to them and what spectrum of services and settings were the highest priority for their productivity and downtime.
Once we understood what those were, whether it was being able to grab a healthy, chef-prepared meal, take a quick rest, or have a private room to chart or take a phone call, we used that information to curate a thoughtful journey through the space. The goal was to create an experience that was welcoming, intuitive, and simple.
HCD: How is the layout organized to accommodate different types of spaces and meet the overall project goals?
Hirons: When first entering the Faculty Office Center, there’s a welcome center and a community manager who greets the faculty members and can assist as needed.
We planned out zones that connect program functions with physical attributes of the various areas of the space. For example, the social and collaborative zone features a coffee bar, café, and grab-and-go area and is in the middle of the space, along major circulation pathways with a considerable amount of daylight.
The workspace zone is in a larger area and includes collaborative conference rooms, private unassigned offices that are reservable through an app, more open collaboration areas, and a library. Finally, the wellness area has quiet rooms, a fitness room, and spa-like private shower rooms and is in a more secluded interior space with comfortable furniture and adjustable color lights to allow user control to align with their mood and relevant task.
HCD: How did you balance the need for both private working space and collaborative space?
Lambert: The ability to reserve private offices was important to the faculty, especially for those who previously had their own offices. We had to make sure there were the right number of rooms, and that those rooms were thoughtful about acoustics, visual privacy, and seamless technology.
Hirons: Collaboration spaces were also important to help physician faculty build rapport and trust with one another outside of clinical spaces. This ultimately goes toward another Northwestern Medicine goal of nurturing a stronger culture and mentorship.
As a result, there’s a range of settings for large groups as well as banquette seating for more private discussions. The conference rooms and library also encourage knowledge sharing and collaboration across specialties and services.
HCD: How does the membership model of the Faculty Office Center enhance the physician experience while addressing space constraints at the academic medical facility?
Lambert: We wanted to focus on a smaller, more concentrated space that could provide more services and seamless access close to where they work. Private offices in an academic medical center can often be far away from clinician spaces, and they often don’t have the same amenities.
The Faculty Office Center maximizes its 20,000 square feet with zones accommodating faculty priorities. It’s also flexible to accommodate newly recruited faculty members while keeping the feature-rich experience.
HCD: Jurors appreciated the high quality of the space and its focus on caregivers. How did you approach the aesthetics?
Hirons: Through our conversations with faculty, we realized the importance of creating an oasis, a Zen-like space where they could decompress and find time to prioritize their own wellness, essentially providing “care for the caregivers.”
The interiors team wanted this space to be a stark contrast to the clinical spaces where these physicians spend a lot of their time. Many biophilic design elements are featured, such as curved wall forms, smooth and reflective surfaces to mimic water, and wood tones and natural stone to create a serene, forest-like environment.
Natural cloud patterns and tree canopy-inspired dappled light are translated by means of a backlit, perforated ceiling creating a soft, calming atmosphere throughout. From the moment of arrival, which has a view of a birch forest setting behind a translucent glass wall, the goal was for physicians to feel an immediate sense of relaxation.
Features such as controllable lighting or more intense sound dampening in private spaces as well as the use of natural patterns and textures are also meant to support neurodivergent members.
HCD: As private faculty offices become a thing of the past, what lessons can be learned from this project?
Lambert: Private faculty offices are not necessarily a thing of the past. Academic medical centers are looking towards the future of both their space needs and how they can best support their faculty’s well-being. There will always be a need for some assigned private offices. The question is how many faculty members need one, or even want one, when the alternative can be a convenient, proximate space catered to their needs.
The default has been the private office because it’s a relatively straightforward way to allocate space. But with space constraints and under-utilization of these offices, institutions are looking for other ways to provide workspaces and wellness opportunities for faculty.
The Faculty Office Center offers a more tailored, well-rounded, and enriching experience. This better, more concentrated faculty work environment also gives Northwestern Medicine more flexibility to expand other parts of its campus for delivering care, conducting research, and training future providers.
For more coverage of Healthcare Design’s 2026 Design Showcase, go here.
The Design Showcase winners will be celebrated during an Awards Luncheon at the 2026 Healthcare Design Conference + Expo, Oct. 17-20 in New Orleans. Find updates and additional information on the 2026 HCD Conference + Expo here.
Anne DiNardo is editor-in-chief of Healthcare Design magazine and can be reached at [email protected].
