In 2012, the client’s founder and CEO stood on site, looking across the second floor expanse, a concrete slab with pools of algae-covered rainwater. Glancing up at the design team he asked, “am I crazy?” As the largest founding tenant for the unique rehabilitation of a 1.5 million square-foot warehouse building into a health/wellness, arts, and education “vertical urban village,” the client had a vision of infusing a population in need with hope and healing. The charge for the design team was to take the vision he had nurtured, from inception through its 30 year history in a collection of buildings, into this single location, more than doubling their capacity to care for patients. A host of services for the fullest sense of health and wellbeing are made available to the working un- and under-insured by volunteer physicians and staff, to fulfill the client’s inter-faith mission to “care for one another.”     

The client asked to “see wellness happening.” They asked for warmth, comfort, inspiration, a sense of welcome for all, and good stewardship of their resources—including first- and long-term costs as well as of their provider/staff/volunteer resources. They asked for efficiency, practicality, and vision for the future. They asked the design team to be their partner.