Boston – Massachusetts Eye and Ear Infirmary’s new 79,000sf facility on Huntington Avenue near the Longwood Medical Area is a stand-alone patient care and surgical center serving a large number of visually impaired people.
TsoiKobus & Associates’s (TK&A) design of the building includes many elements specifically implemented to accommodate these users, as well as an aging population in general.
Some of the design strategies that TK&A employed to make the building more accessible to the visually impaired include:·
…To simplify navigation through the space, strong color contrast distinguishes between walls and floor, furniture and floor, fixtures and floor, and between doors and the adjacent wall.Special floor patterns at doors help visitors to easily identify door locations;
…Accent colors are introduced in the floor to mark the main path to major destinations like clinic entries and reception desks.·
…. Relatively intense accent colors are used on side corridors to help visually impaired visitors identify their clinical destination. Different colors in different corridors help to facilitate way finding.·
…. Access to natural daylight is maximized by locating public waiting rooms and corridors next to huge exterior windows.·
…..Rust-colored Trespa rainscreen panels on the building’s exterior create a uniquely recognizable presence on busy Huntington Avenue, allowing the building to stand out from its neighbors.
The designers also made sure that the new building would be a lively and welcoming presence in the neighborhood. For example, they designed the cafe so that its seating section is front and center, facing Huntington Avenue. In addition, an optical shop open to the public is situated on the first floor, encouraging additional traffic into the building. Due to the building’s position at the foot of a steep hill, large windows on upper stories establish a connection with foot traffic on the side street as well. The building was profiled in the project gallery at the ASHE PDC conference in February.
The project team is Tsoi/Kobus & Associates, architect; Bard, Rao + Athanas, M/E/P engineer; Suffolk Construction Company, construction manager; McNamara/Salvia Inc., structural engineer; The Beal Companies, property manager; Murphy & McManus LLC, real estate consulting; GEI Consultants Inc., geotechnical consultants; R.W. Sullivan Inc., Code Consultant; and Bruce T. Martin Photography.