Archinect - News

A ‘textural and reflective building skin’ wraps the University of Washington’s new Health Sciences Education Building

2023-10-12T14:08:00-04:00

A team comprising The Miller Hull Partnership, The S/L/A/M Collaborative, and Lease Crutcher Lewis has completed the new Health Sciences Education Building at the University of Washington in Seattle. Designed using a ‘culture of care’ philosophy, the scheme seeks to provide a “shared physical space that sparks innovation and creativity among students.”

Image credit: Moris Moreno

Marking a new entrance to the university’s South Campus, the Health Sciences Education Building is the first project to be delivered as part of a wider campus master plan. While the existing campus prioritizes an indoor circulation system between buildings, the new scheme seeks to pull people outdoors and introduce a new network of accessible pathways, murals, and sculptural public art, as well as outdoor seating areas.

Image credit: Moris Moreno

The building is constructed of a hybrid system using steel, concrete, and cross-laminated timber. Inside, the incl...

Safdie Architects completes Albert Einstein Education and Research Center in São Paulo

2022-07-25T17:13:00-04:00

Safdie Architects has completed a new verdant medical school and research building with a distinctive domed glass roof in São Paulo.

Conceived as an urban oasis, the Albert Einstein Education and Research Center (AEERC) is the latest initiative of Brazilian healthcare institute Sociedade Beneficente Israelita Albert Einstein. It is slated to be one of Latin America’s most advanced institutions for medical research and study.

Photo by Timothy Hursley. Courtesy of Safdie Architects

The Center is located in São Paulo’s Morumbi district, adjacent to the Hospital Israelita Albert Einstein. The AEERC is the first medical school established by a private hospital in Brazil. Safdie Architects also worked in collaboration with Perkins&Will, who led the programming and interior planning of the classrooms and labs.

Photo by Timothy Hursley. Courtesy of Safdie Architects

The integration of nature throughout the spaces of the facility is at the core of the project’s design. The centerpiece of the...

First renderings of new slim, glass-clad medical building in Manhattan by INOA Architecture

2022-04-08T14:23:00-04:00

Renderings from INOA Architecture are the first to reveal a new seven-story mixed-use building at 308 East 59th Street in Sutton Place, Manhattan. Located immediately next to the Queensboro Bridge onramp, the building will house a mix of hospital outpatient facilities with specialized medical spaces above.

Plans for the structure were first revealed in 2015 from local developer Tony Boemi. Original renderings from C3D Architecture depicted a 16-story building with 12 rental apartments and a 2,000-square-foot retail space on the ground floor. This, however, never broke ground.

Here, the new renderings by INOA Architecture show a building with a distinct glass façade with folds and cantilevers. Obtaining maximum light exposure is clearly a distinguishing feature of the space. Its top floor takes the shape of a trapezoidal volume.

According to New York Yimby, construction of the new building is expected to begin this summer and conclude by the end of 2023. Permits have reportedly been approved by the Department of Buildings, the Department of Transit, and the City Planning Commission.

Snøhetta and HGA selected to design new Parnassus Research and Academic Building at UCSF

2021-07-16T16:40:00-04:00

Snøhetta and HGA are teaming up to design the new Parnassus Research and Academic Building (PRAB) at the University of California San Francisco (UCSF).

The approximately $700 million project will anchor a redesigned west end of the campus. The building is being accompanied by extensive site improvements in the surrounding area and a new hospital planned for the east end of the Parnassus Heights campus. Together, these projects are part of phase one of the Comprehensive Parnassus Heights Plan, a sweeping multi-decade revitalization of the campus.

The PRAB project will replace UC Hall, UCSF’s oldest building at Parnassus Heights, which was built in 1917. Preliminary plans for the building call for a 270,000-square-foot space with wet labs, computational labs, modern classrooms, and a nursing school, all supported by open spaces and other public realm improvements. 12,000 square feet will be set aside for education, allowing graduate students to work in labs and attend classes under ...

HENN stacks hybrid medical programs in Guangzhou

2020-06-23T13:45:00-04:00

Located in the heart of Guangzhou's bio-tech district, HENN is developing the Medview Regenerative Medicine Innovation Center, a hybrid office and laboratory building set to function as a headquarters and communication center, as well as a development and production platform for start-ups.

The functional arrangement of the floors.

Interplay between one- and two-story spaces.

The company specializes in the development of high-precision products for the repair and reconstruction of human tissue, including cranial, jaw and facial tissue, as well as artificial skim, veins and ligaments. The institutions research has already been recognized worldwide, and it holds 130 patents.

Ground Floor Plan.

Floor Plan with Sky Gardens.

Floor Plan with Labs and Project Spaces.

HENN's design concept builds on an X-shaped form with three stacked zones separated by two "sky gardens." The first zone, located at ground level, is the public "testing" area and has its own laboratory. The second zone, at the mi...

Yazdani Studio's Kaiser Permanente School of Medicine in Pasadena set for July 2020 completion

2020-05-08T12:18:00-04:00

The new Kaiser Permanente School of Medicine building in Pasadena, California is nearing completion.

Back in February of last year, the medical giant released renderings and a virtual tour of the new structure, which was designed by Yazdani Studio. The four-story building is due to be completed in July of this year and, according to UrbanizaLA, is expected to start with an initial class of 48 students, eventually enrolling up to 192 students by 2022.

Jupe creates rapid response deployable shelter units for healthcare workers and patient recovery

2020-04-02T18:23:00-04:00

Across the globe, industries are doing the best they can to respond to the global COVID-19 pandemic that is affecting millions of people daily. The architecture and design industry has stepped into action by providing aid and continuous assistant through the PPE fabrication and collaboration with other medical and health institutions.

As numbers of coronavirus patients increase, the need for medical space to assist these patients has decreased. In places like China, Italy, the U.S. and Germany, temporary medical facilities have been constructed. However, one company aims to help mitigate the issue and provide spaces where healthcare workers can rest and patients can recover. Co-founders Jeff Wilson and Cameron Blizzard have teamed together with a group of healthcare professionals, industrial design specialists, architects, and engineers to create another way to help the COVID-19's growing housing and treatment issue.

Images courtesy of JUPE

According to the company's site, "COVID-19...

NYC considers converting Jacob K. Javits Convention Center to temporary medical facility

2020-03-21T13:39:00-04:00

[Gov. Andrew Cuomo] has requested four field hospitals of 250 beds each from the federal government, for a total of 1,000 beds. He is looking at Javits for all of those. He's also asked for four Army Corps of Engineers temporary hospitals. For those, he's looking at the Javits Center; SUNY Stony Brook; SUNY Old Westbury; and the Westchester County Center, another events venue.

Manuel Herz Architect's rural hospital expansion in Senegal

2018-06-05T16:12:00-04:00

The Switzerland-based firm Manuel Herz Architect has been selected to design an important new expansion for a rural hospital in the Tambacounda region of Senegal. Conceived and funded by the Josef and Anni Albers Foundation and Le Korsa, the facility's expansion will help alleviate a current overcrowding issue.

The hospital currently serves 20,000 patients per year from the surrounding area and is in desperate need of more space to accommodate these numbers.

Manuel Herz’s design aims to sensitively address the brief with a focus on greater coherence and comfort within the space. The design consists of a winding curvilinear building with lattice brickwork to help alleviate the region's extreme temperatures.

End Stages: The Future of Hospice Design

2018-05-15T16:38:00-04:00

As hospice design becomes more formally ambitious — and standardized — we should remember there is no universal model for ‘dying well.’

What is the ideal setting for the end of life? The dominant templates of the mid-century mega-hospital and the domestic hospice set the rational spaces of medical institutions against the familiarity of home. Yet, we are increasingly seeing hybrid forms that deviate from these two distinct models. Nitin Ahuja looks ahead to the future of palliative architecture, and argues that in one's final needful hours, the most comforting hearths are those that feel serendipitously constructed.

Sick people in Scandinavia can check into these "patient hotels" as hospital alternatives

2015-11-13T15:37:00-05:00

Over the last few years, we’ve all finally admitted that hospitals are depressing, sometimes toxic places...[But] what if the solution is to redesign the building itself?...Since the late 1980’s, hotels—not hospitals—specifically designed for sick people have been popping up throughout Scandinavia. In [some countries,] a patient’s stay is free, covered by national insurance...Accommodations at patient hotels resemble most traditional 3-star hotel properties.

More about health-related design on Archinect:

Jason Danziger heals psychosis with design

How urban designers can better address mental health in their work, according to a new think tank

Preventing disease and upholding public health through architecture

Construction kicks off for Steven Holl-designed Maggie's Centre Barts in London

Michael Graves' Vision: Making Hospitals More Fashionable

Can better design save lives in hospital trauma centers?

2014-07-25T14:40:00-04:00

Cedars-Sinai Hospital in Los Angeles partnered with the Department of Defense to build out the OR360, a new innovation center where doctors and military personnel can simulate hypothetical scenarios in order to simplify and streamline trauma care. [...] Designed by CannonDesign, the nearly 10,000-square-foot space is the hospital’s answer to the big question of: How can you make trauma care, both in hospitals and in military situations, faster and more effective?

Last Word: Lost in Limbo

2012-06-27T18:56:00-04:00

Mark Dery, reflecting on his recent life as a self-described ‘career patient’, implores hospital architects to collaborate with interior designers, psychologists and neuroscientists in order to eradicate forever the pain of ‘medical incarceration’.