Anne DiNardo (HCD/Forge)
While reviewing the entries in the annual Healthcare Design Showcase, jury members take a critical eye to submissions, evaluating projects for their effectiveness in categories including aesthetics, innovation, experience, and operational performance. Those projects that rise to the top receive Award of Merit, Honorable Mention, and Finalist honors. Additionally, Healthcare Design hosts a discussion with jury members to dive deeper into this year’s entries to identify common themes and emerging trends in the industry.
This year’s entries highlighted a clear movement toward creating better environments for faculty and staff, with several projects incorporating high-end, hotel-like break areas to help combat burnout. The jury also observed advancements in patient room features designed for families, improved environments for behavioral health facilities, and a growing need and effort to create a more unified design aesthetic that flows from public lobbies into treatment areas.
Prioritizing staff respite space in healthcare facilities
As healthcare systems and project teams continue to seek ways to address staff burnout and retention, investment in quality staff environments is becoming both a design and organization priority. This was evident in this year’s Design Showcase, as staff respite spaces moved to the foreground on several projects, jurors noted. “These are the spaces we always talk about but seeing them celebrated in such a wonderful way was really gratifying,” says Jennifer Ankerson, senior associate, senior interior designer at Leo A Daly (Omaha, Neb.).
In fact, this year’s single Award of Merit recognition celebrates an academic medical center for its forward-thinking approach to allocating faculty member workspace to support focus and restoration while freeing up space to accommodate increased patient care spatial needs.
The Northwestern Medicine, Faculty Office Center in Chicago, submitted by CannonDesign (Chicago), allows faculty to exchange their private offices for access to a hospitality-inspired destination that includes reservable private offices and collaboration zones as well as meditation rooms, showers, and sleep rooms. Operating on a membership basis, the 20,000-square-foot space, which is close to the main hospital, improves the work experience for physicians while delivering space savings for Northwestern Medicine (Chicago). Jurors cited the project as representing “fresh thinking” in approaching provider-only spaces.
Looking at the big picture, Deborah Antes, director of space planning and architectural services, University of Chicago Medicine (Chicago), says the project illustrates how to solve a real challenge that urban facilities face: running out of space. “At University of Chicago, we’re in a very dense environment and have no more space for faculty offices,” she says, adding that the organization is doing a similar project on a much smaller scale at one of its facilities. “These spaces often get deprioritized because they’re not revenue-generating. Clinical work always comes first,” Antes says. “So I do think we’re seeing a trend toward more of these types of projects.”
In addition to new space types, jurors also appreciated improved aesthetic approaches for staff spaces in this year’s entries. For example, at the Deborah Heart & Lung Center, Olsen Family Patient Care Pavilion in Browns Mills, N.J., submitted by EwingCole (Philadelphia), a dedicated staff amenity level features bold colors and wall graphics, an exterior employee porch, and multiple seating locations, offering an environment that looks and feels different from the rest of the facility. The project was named a Finalist in the 2026 Design Showcase.
“Overall, the theme of taking care of our staff and providers and really putting a spotlight on that felt new and important,” Ankerson says.
Elevating aesthetics in healthcare facilities
Jurors also noted a continued evolution in hospitality design’s influence within healthcare in this year’s entries. “Many of the projects were designed to a higher standard than we’ve traditionally seen in healthcare,” says Ross McCoy, senior associate/senior healthcare architect at The S/L/A/M Collaborative (Glastonbury, Conn.). “Patient rooms, staff spaces, public spaces—all of it was elevated.”
For the RWJ Barnabas Health / Rutgers Cancer Institute – Jack & Sheryl Morris Cancer Center in New Brunswick, N.J., submitted by HOK (New York), jurors appreciated how the patient rooms prioritize family amenities. “While the room was large, they made moves that you could apply to any size room: switching from a sleeper sofa to a sleeper chair, adding a small dining table and chairs, making the furniture moveable. That gives families flexibility and choice,” says Ali DeSantis, senior associate, senior interior designer at Ballinger (Philadelphia). “Little moves like that are worth starting to think about more seriously as we transition away from just defaulting to what we’ve always done.”
Jurors also appreciated continued improvements in the design of behavioral health spaces. “Five years ago, you’d walk into a behavioral health project and immediately know exactly what it was because the design assumptions baked into that typology made it nearly impossible to produce something you’d find in any other healthcare context,” says Saul Jabbawy, principal and regional design director at EwingCole (Philadelphia). “That’s changed. A lot of behavioral health projects are now on par with other types of healthcare projects that are based on hospitality design principles.”
Recognizing the inherent design challenges associated with these facilities, including robust safety requirements, jurors celebrated several projects that illustrated new design solutions to common problems. For example, at the Behavioral Health & Wellness Center at Children’s Nebraska in Omaha, Neb., submitted by HDR (Omaha), the project team found an opportunity to turn the required safety design features in the main lobby social stair into an inspiring and engaging structure that promotes activity and wonder.
Specifically, the connecting stair, which that links the first-floor entrance to the second-floor behavioral outpatient waiting area, features full-height storefront glazing, lined with dichroic film, which refracts prismatic colors as daylight shines into the space while maintaining visibility and safety needs within the space. The project was named a finalist in the 2026 Design Showcase.
“Every step forward [in behavioral health design] should be celebrated, because the humanity of those spaces needs to increase tenfold,” says Suzanne Musho, corporate director, NewYork-Presbyterian Hospital (New York). “The moves are being made, but we need bigger gestures.”
Importance of design consistency in facility design
One of the most persistent critiques across this year’s submissions was the disconnect between public spaces and clinical environments. “There were admirable moments in almost all of the submissions, but what I found missing—and what I think we can continue to foster and mature—is consistency of experience,” says Musho.
Jabbawy adds that it’s still too common to see a project with “beautiful public spaces and then clinical spaces that feel like an afterthought with a little white, maybe a couple of accents, but lacking depth,” he says. “That was more evident in previous years, and I think we’re beginning to see a movement toward a more unified experience.”
A common missed opportunity in patient rooms continues to be what the patient sees, says Angela Kolosky, principal, healthcare planning market leader at DesignGroup (Columbus, Ohio). “A lot of time is spent on patient headwalls that they never see lying in bed. Focusing more on the patient footwall and ceiling can help support patients during their stay,” she says.
A complex set of reasons can contribute to the disconnect between public and clinical environments, including value engineering, siloed project teams, or limited project budgets. However, the imbalance undercuts the patient experience, jurors say. “It broadly comes down to how we build teams,” Anderson says. “You build a structure that works and then push repeat. But even with longstanding clients, if we don’t continually look inward—what were the lessons learned, what worked, what could we have done better—we miss things.”
Projects that rose to the top demonstrated a unified design language throughout and exhibited restrained palettes and a clear understanding of where investment would most directly serve patients and staff. “The projects that stood out to me had a clear design story that was consistent from every angle of the scope—exterior, lobby, staff spaces, and patient spaces,” says Nancy Coleman-Davis, director, system program/design and construction at AdventHealth (St. Louis).
For example, the renovation/fit-out of the Lisa Dean Moseley Foundation Institute for Cancer and Blood Disorders at Nemours Children’s Hospital in Wilmington, Del., submitted by HDR (Philadelphia), features a colorful shape that was repeatable and scalable throughout the clinic along with simple finishes, and cohesive graphics. The project earned an Honorable Mention in the 2026 Design Showcase. “The restraint and execution of a few smart, scalable ideas was really successful, rather than trying to do everything at once,” DeSantis says. “That’s more effective than something overstimulating.”
Anne DiNardo is executive editor of Healthcare Design magazine and can be reached at [email protected].
