A redesign of the Mayo Clinic’s downtown campus in Rochester, Minn., centers around two new clinical high-rise buildings. The two nine-story structures will reach a height of 221 feet, with the potential to expand to 420 feet. Part of a multiyear strategic initiative, the two towers feature a skybridge that horizontally links them with the existing Gonda Building, allowing staff to traverse the site efficiently.
The skybridge is an integral part of a double-height social amenity level that will provide patients and loved ones with space to rest, connect, and recharge. This level will be clearly visible on the building’s façade, making it easy to locate from any part of the campus.
The design creates a new central point of arrival, with the north and south drop-offs converging at a unified main entrance. The existing Gonda Lobby will extend into the new facilities, simplifying wayfinding and creating a welcoming environment from the moment of arrival.
The design creates adjacencies in dynamic care “neighborhoods” that will streamline the patient experience. These community-centered neighborhoods will fuse services around patient needs and specific diseases, creating continuous care environments that will serve as patients’ homes while at the clinic.
Double-height winter gardens will be located at the center of care neighborhoods, uniting them, and providing light-filled spaces with spectacular views of the city. The atriums are both social and functional, providing opportunities for new forms of respite and healing or collaboration and care.
A universal grid along with generous floor-to-floor heights will allow clinical spaces to change over time and respond as healthcare continues to evolve. Care environments will be served behind the scenes by highly flexible technological infrastructure containing mechanical, data, and robotic delivery systems that support pioneering treatments while allowing prioritization of human connections.
Seamless integration of digital capabilities blurs traditional distinctions between inpatient, outpatient, and virtual care to support patients throughout their healthcare journey.
“This is a revolutionary moment for medical care and a complete rethinking of the traditional hospital building as we know it offering maximum flexibility for future needs, while ensuring that the interest of the patient remains at the heart of their healthcare,” says Norman Foster, founder and executive chairman, Foster + Partners. “Our design centers on natural light, views and connections with nature to facilitate new breakthroughs and help deliver the highest level of care with warmth and compassion.”
On the project team:
Owner: Mayo Clinic
Architects: Foster + Partners; CannonDesign
Engineers: CannonDesign is Engineer of Record. Burns and McDonnell is engineer of record for central plant upgrades, site electrical, and thermal utilities.
General Contractor: Gilbane Building Company
Related Stories
| Mar 3, 2011
HDR acquires healthcare design-build firm Cooper Medical
HDR, a global architecture, engineering and consulting firm, acquired Cooper Medical, a firm providing integrated design and construction services for healthcare facilities throughout the U.S. The new alliance, HDR Cooper Medical, will provide a full service design and construction delivery model to healthcare clients.
| Mar 1, 2011
New survey shows shifts in hospital construction projects
America’s hospitals and health systems are focusing more on renovation or expansion than new construction, according to a new survey conducted by Health Facilities Management magazine and the American Society for Healthcare Engineering (ASHE). In fact, renovation or expansion accounted for 73% of construction projects at hospitals responding to the survey.
| Feb 22, 2011
HDR Architecture names four healthcare directors
Four senior professionals in HDR Architecture’s healthcare program have been named Healthcare directors.
| Feb 17, 2011
HDR Architecture sponsors national effort to green operating rooms
HDR Architecture, Inc. has joined the group of corporate sponsors of Practice Greenhealth’s Greening the Operating Room Initiative. This sweeping and prescriptive path to green the nation’s operating rooms was launched earlier this year to reduce the environmental footprint of the operating suites in hospitals across the country, which can produce between 20 and 30% of a hospital’s total waste.
| Feb 11, 2011
Iowa surgery center addresses both inpatient and outpatient care
The 12,000-person community of Carroll, Iowa, has a new $28 million surgery center to provide both inpatient and outpatient care. Minneapolis-based healthcare design firm Horty Elving headed up the four-story, 120,000-sf project for St. Anthony’s Regional Hospital. The center’s layout is based on a circular process flow, and includes four 800-sf operating rooms with poured rubber floors to reduce leg fatigue for surgeons and support staff, two substerile rooms between each pair of operating rooms, and two endoscopy rooms adjacent to the outpatient prep and recovery rooms. Recovery rooms are clustered in groups of four. The large family lounge (left) has expansive windows with views of the countryside, and television monitors that display coded information on patient status so loved ones can follow a patient’s progress.
| Feb 11, 2011
Two projects seek to reinvigorate Los Angeles County medical center
HMC Architects designed two new buildings for the Los Angeles County Martin Luther King, Jr., Medical Center as part of a $360 million plan to reinvigorate the campus. The buildings include a 120-bed hospital, which involves renovation of an existing tower and several support buildings, and the construction of a new multi-service ambulatory care center. The new facilities will have large expanses of glass at all waiting and public areas for unobstructed views of downtown Los Angeles. A curved glass entrance canopy will unite the two buildings. When both projects are completed—the hospital in 2012 and the ambulatory care center in 2013—the campus will have added more than 460,000 sf of space. The hospital will seek LEED certification, while the ambulatory care center is targeting LEED Silver.
| Feb 9, 2011
Hospital Construction in the Age of Obamacare
The recession has hurt even the usually vibrant healthcare segment. Nearly three out of four hospital systems have put the brakes on capital projects. We asked five capital expenditure insiders for their advice on how Building Teams can still succeed in this highly competitive sector.
| Jan 31, 2011
Cuningham Group Architecture launches Healthcare studio with Lee Brennan
International design firm Cuningham Group Architecture, P.A. (Cuningham Group) has announced the arrival of Lee Brennan, AIA, as Principal and Leader of its new Healthcare studio. Brennan comes to Cuningham Group with over 30 years of professional experience, 22 of those years in healthcare, encompassing all aspects of project delivery, from strategic planning and programming through design and construction. The firm’s new Healthcare studio will enhance Cuningham Group’s expertise in leisure and entertainment, education, mixed-use/housing and workplace environments.
| Jan 31, 2011
HDR Architecture Releases Evidence-based Design Videos
As a follow-up to its book Evidence-based Design for Healthcare Facilities, HDR Architecture, Inc. has released three video case studies that highlight evidence-based design principles in action.
