Boston, MA – Payette recently announced the firm’s design of the 182,000 SF Penn State Hershey Cancer Institute was named the sole recipient of the inaugural Generative Space Health Improvement Award by the CARITAS Project. The Cancer Institute is located on the Penn State Milton S. Hershey Medical Center Campus in University Park, Pennsylvania and was formally dedicated in June 2009.
The CARITAS Project seeks to identify and recognize healthcare settings from around the world where the focus is on improving human health through improving the design of the environment, and as a result individuals, organizations, and communities flourish, and this annual international award recognizes projects that utilize the whole environment as a tool to improve healthcare.
Designed to provide patients and their families with a welcoming, peaceful environment while they receive the latest in advanced medical treatments, this cancer institute is an experiment in full translational medicine, where research and clinical functions are strategically mixed to encourage collaboration between the two. Clinical functions are located on the lower three floors, and research labs are located on the top two levels. Researchers and clinical doctors share offices on the top two floors, with ancillary support spaces located to encourage spontaneous encounters across groups. The keynote space is a five-story “beehive” atrium, which links all research and clinical floors and provides vertical and horizontal connections between the two groups.
This LEED-registered project features a series of healing gardens, linking buildings and open spaces. The gardens take the form of green roofs located over underground expansion space for the radiology and service departments. Each landscape responds to its occupants – a healing garden for cancer patients, a courtyard for the general public and a children’s activity garden to be built in the future when the Children’s Hospital is complete.
“The translational approach to healthcare offers promising new ways to study and treat diseases. Penn State and the Hershey Medical Center campus are worthy recipients of this important award,” said Kevin Sullivan, AIA, principal at Payette. “The new Cancer Institute integrates research and clinical functions to establish a new kind of healing environment.”
Representatives from Payette and the Penn State Hershey Cancer Institute will be on hand at the 2010 Healthcare Facilities Symposium and Expo (HFSE) in Chicago, Illinois to accept the award on September 14, 2010.
Juried by a panel of experts in healthcare design and operations, projects were judged on their efficacy and performance in delivering systemic and sustainable improvements to the healing environment. The judges noted that the new Penn State Hershey Cancer Institute “…provides innovation and documentation of how they have succeeded with the design of the building to promote collaboration and communication, recognizing the variety of needs for privacy and community of cancer patients.” Additionally, they noted, “…this is an outstanding environment, both physically attractive and cleverly planned to allow creative interaction between its professional users. The use of garden spaces as external counterpoints to the high density interior is admirable.”
Payette is teamed with Array (Associate Architect) for the Cancer Institute. The project team for the research and clinical care projects also includes Bard, Rao + Athanas Consulting Engineers for MEP Engineering; Gannett Fleming for Structural, Civil and Traffic Engineering; Hargreaves Associates for Landscape Architecture; Walker Parking Consultants for Parking Design; and Gilbane for Construction Management.