Perkins+Will and The Johns Hopkins Hospital Facilities and Design staff designed a new 1.6-million-square-foot complex for the academic medical center and the nation’s top-ranked hospital.
Opening May 1, 2012, the facility will serve as a new gateway to the medical campus while transforming the healthcare experience. Distinguished by its curved shape, articulated forms, bold color, gardens, and natural light, the Johns Hopkins Hospital includes two 12-story towers for children’s and adult healthcare that rise from an eight-story base of the structure.
The design for the new clinical building provides a clear identity for each tower composed into a unified whole. The complex includes 560 private patient rooms, 33 state-of-the-art operating rooms, and expansive new adult and pediatric emergency departments. Its integrated healthcare planning and design supports both the most advanced medical technology and the latest evidence-based strategies for ideal patient-oriented care.
The curvilinear glass and brick building, accented with colorful panels, serves as the new front door to the hospital and the entire 14-acre campus. The architecture guides people to the entrance where a canopy extends the length of the entrance, sheltering the emergency and hospital entryways. A landscaped entry plaza, the size of a football field, leads the way into a two-story sky-lit adult tower lobby with a meditation garden as well as the soaring four-story children’s lobby.??
In a rare approach, from the outset of the facility’s planning and design, a multidisciplinary project partnership was established for a highly interactive process of creative exchange. This unique collaboration included Perkins+Will, artists from across the country, an art curator, Bloomberg Philanthropies, and Johns Hopkins staff and leadership. As a result of this alliance, the building now incorporates over 500 works of art created for the facility by more than 70 artists, as well as numerous healing gardens, to create a dignified, uplifting, and nurturing environment. ??
A key design feature of the building, created in collaboration with Brooklyn-based artist Spencer Finch, is a shimmering glass curtain wall that covers much of the building’s exterior. Perkins+Will worked closely with Finch and the project partnership over many months to integrate the architecture with the artist’s concept. The result is a multi-colored two-layered fritted glass façade that incorporates Finch’s unique approach to color. Its effect moderates the Baltimore light by day and transforms the building into a glowing composition of color and light by night. BD+C
Related Stories
Building Technology | Jun 18, 2024
Could ‘smart’ building facades heat and cool buildings?
A promising research project looks at the possibilities for thermoelectric systems to thermally condition buildings, writes Mahsa Farid Mohajer, Sustainable Building Analyst with Stantec.
University Buildings | Jun 18, 2024
UC Riverside’s new School of Medicine building supports team-based learning, showcases passive design strategies
The University of California, Riverside, School of Medicine has opened the 94,576-sf, five-floor Education Building II (EDII). Created by the design-build team of CO Architects and Hensel Phelps, the medical school’s new home supports team-based student learning, offers social spaces, and provides departmental offices for faculty and staff.
Healthcare Facilities | Jun 18, 2024
A healthcare simulation technology consultant can save time, money, and headaches
As the demand for skilled healthcare professionals continues to rise, healthcare simulation is playing an increasingly vital role in the skill development, compliance, and continuing education of the clinical workforce.
Mass Timber | Jun 17, 2024
British Columbia hospital features mass timber community hall
The Cowichan District Hospital Replacement Project in Duncan, British Columbia, features an expansive community hall featuring mass timber construction. The hall, designed to promote social interaction and connection to give patients, families, and staff a warm and welcoming environment, connects a Diagnostic and Treatment (“D&T”) Block and Inpatient Tower.
Concrete Technology | Jun 17, 2024
MIT researchers are working on a way to use concrete as an electric battery
Researchers at MIT have developed a concrete mixture that can store electrical energy. The researchers say the mixture of water, cement, and carbon black could be used for building foundations and street paving.
Codes and Standards | Jun 17, 2024
Federal government releases national definition of a zero emissions building
The U.S. Department of Energy has released a new national definition of a zero emissions building. The definition is intended to provide industry guidance to support new and existing commercial and residential buildings to move towards zero emissions across the entire building sector, DOE says.
Multifamily Housing | Jun 14, 2024
AEC inspections are the key to financially viable office to residential adaptive reuse projects
About a year ago our industry was abuzz with an idea that seemed like a one-shot miracle cure for both the shockingly high rate of office vacancies and the worsening housing shortage. The seemingly simple idea of converting empty office buildings to multifamily residential seemed like an easy and elegant solution. However, in the intervening months we’ve seen only a handful of these conversions, despite near universal enthusiasm for the concept.
Healthcare Facilities | Jun 13, 2024
Top 10 trends in the hospital facilities market
BD+C evaluated more than a dozen of the nation's most prominent hospital construction projects to identify trends that are driving hospital design and construction in the $67 billion healthcare sector. Here’s what we found.
Adaptive Reuse | Jun 13, 2024
4 ways to transform old buildings into modern assets
As cities grow, their office inventories remain largely stagnant. Yet despite changes to the market—including the impact of hybrid work—opportunities still exist. Enter: “Midlife Metamorphosis.”
Affordable Housing | Jun 12, 2024
Studio Libeskind designs 190 affordable housing apartments for seniors
In Brooklyn, New York, the recently opened Atrium at Sumner offers 132,418 sf of affordable housing for seniors. The $132 million project includes 190 apartments—132 of them available to senior households earning below or at 50% of the area median income and 57 units available to formerly homeless seniors.
