April Sampson Cancer Center, Lincoln, Nebraska: 2025 Design Showcase Honorable Mention
Opened in April 2024, the April Sampson Cancer Center in Lincoln, Neb., brings services previously provided at multiple sites into one facility to support a multidisciplinary clinic model in which medical, radiation, and surgical oncologists come to the patient, instead of requiring patients to travel to receive care at different locations.
Maximizing views to the outdoors
Located within a rolling landscape that includes meadows, woods, and a natural pond, the design approach took great care to orient the building within its natural setting to maximize site features and support holistic healing.
Specifically, the project team, including architecture and design firm Ballinger (Philadelphia), which submitted the project to the Design Showcase, utilized the site’s significant grade change to design a building that’s 2 stories on the eastern side, with a primarily glass façade, and one level on the western side.
The advantages of this layout include maximized views of nature and optimized distribution of goods and utilities, with the lower level providing easy access to the loading dock and incoming utilities in addition to the radiation treatment facility and lower lobby.
The center houses two clients—Bryan Health, a nonprofit healthcare organization, and Cancer Partners of Nebraska, a for-profit cancer care provider that leases space in the building—in two distinct but connected wings. This partnership enables the center to offer complementary services, such as physical and occupational therapy and genetic testing and counseling, in addition to cancer treatment.
Interior design strategies
Consistency of materials and layout unifies the interior, ensuring that the experience throughout the building is seamless. The two wings have separate entrances but are joined internally by a lobby featuring a continuous east-west skylight that casts a dynamic pathway of light across the floor.
Adding to the connectivity of the two wings are an extensive art program, colocated exam and infusion spaces, and outdoor therapy gardens. The facility also includes oncological urgent care.
Embracing environmental design strategies, the project features native landscaping, which supports regional habitat restoration, and building systems that are designed to be efficient and resilient.
Additionally, a substantial roof overhang limits solar heat gain and glare from the large windows to reduce the energy consumption and cooling load of the building.
Building materials were also carefully sourced to tie the aesthetics with the natural surroundings. Façades are composed of locally sourced limestone, textured precast concrete panels that match the color of Nebraska’s sandhills and wheat fields, and dark granite paired with finely textured soffits.
For more coverage of Healthcare Design’s 2025 Design Showcase, go here.
Robert McCune is senior editor of Healthcare Design and can be reached at [email protected].
