Kristin D. Zeit

Robin Guenther, a principal with Perkins+Will and senior adviser to Health Care Without Harm, took to the TEDMED stage last week to present an architect’s perspective on the built environment’s role in health.

With plenty of vacant properties available and a growing demand to bring healthcare directly into communities, the conversion of former retail spaces into clinics and other types of facilities just makes sense. “Ambulatory healthcare is the new retail property anchor tenant for existing, older retail centers,” says Eric Dinges, associate vice president at RTKL Associates (Baltimore).

Award winners or not, the Healthcare Design Showcase projects offered a wealth of smart design ideas in their program submissions. Here we highlight some noteworthy details that our jurors singled out for a special hat-tip. Click on the image at left to scroll through the projects and read what the jurors liked best about them.

For more Healthcare Design Showcase coverage, see the following:

For the first time in the 14 years we’ve been doing the Healthcare Design Showcase, our Award of Merit winners come exclusively from outside the U.S.

New Braunfels Community Health Commons in New Braunfels, Texas, designed by Earl Swensson Associates, is a full-service hospital and the centerpiece of Resolute Health’s integrated healthcare delivery network. Opened in June 2014, the medical center sits on a 56-acre wellness campus. The 365,000-square-foot hospital component of the medical center contains 158 beds (includes shelled beds) and has the capability to expand to 300 beds.

Hospice care is a tricky topic in the U.S., where youth is king and reminders of mortality are hastily shoved out of frame in favor of kitty videos and celebrity offspring sightings. But the nature of hospice environments and palliative care in general must be faced as the population ages—rapidly. And, fortunately, forward-thinking designers and care providers are putting forth some really promising concepts.

Click the image at left to see a slideshow of before-and-after photos for each project.

REHAB IN AISLE 6
Rockford Orthopedic Associates, Rockford, Ill.

Park Nicollet’s renovation of its 40,000-square-foot Family Birth Center on the Methodist Hospital campus in St. Louis Park, Minn., was led by Minneapolis-based AECOM, which provided medical planning, interior architecture and design, and schematic mechanical and electrical engineering for the project. Located on the third floor of the original 1957 cross-plan building and stretching into additions from the ’70s and ’90s, the existing conditions were complicated.

The objective for this new microbiology lab in Athens, Greece, designed by Schema Architecture and Engineering, was to adequately and efficiently fit all the complex services that a diagnostic center offers in a small space of 80 square meters.

To date, evidence has indicated that appropriate environmental lighting with characteristics similar to natural light can improve mood, alertness, and performance. The restorative effects of windows also have been documented. Hospital workspaces generally lack windows and daylight, and the impact of the lack of windows and daylight on healthcare employees' well being has not been thoroughly investigated.

The goal for Pashapour Oral & Facial Surgery in Virginia, designed by Forma Design, was maximum style and functionality in a small footprint that capitalized on the unique street-level presence of the space.

We recently reported on a new family space in a children’s hospital, funded by—and designed to resemble—a Dunkin’ Donuts restaurant. The goal of the renovated space was to provide a more comfortable environment for patient visitors, complete with different seating options and computer stations, with a feel akin to a coffee shop. Free Dunkin’ Donuts coffee (donated by local franchisees) is there for the brewing by the cupful.