Designwire Daily: from the editors of Interior Design magazine

National Healthcare Design Awards Announced

by Ian Volner | Wednesday, August 24, 2011

UCLA Outpatient Surgery and Oncology Center

Three firms are taking away top honors in this year’s National Healthcare Design Awards from the American Institute of Architects. The projects in the spotlight demonstrate “conceptual strengths that solve aesthetic, civic, urban, and social concerns,” and include one completed and two unbuilt healthcare facilities in America as well as overseas.

First on the list is the yet-to-be-built UCLA Outpatient Surgery and Oncology Center in Los Angeles, from Michael W. Folonis Architects. The 45,000-square-foot building will be the first oncology center in the nation to qualify for LEED Gold certification for environmental sustainability, largely due to its use of passive solar heating to maximize energy efficiency.

First People's Hospital

Next up is the First People’s Hospital in Foshan City, Quangdong Province, China, by firm HMC Architects. A spine-and-tower composition on a sprawling 13.4-hectare urban site, the building brings western hospital design standards to China, adapting them to suit local needs.

Finally, architects at NBBJ were recognized for their Seattle Children’s Bellevue Clinic in Bellevue, Washington—the only realized project of the three. With some 15 specialty services on offer, the clinic manages to squeeze 110,000 square feet of program into an interior scarcely 80 percent as large. The spatial economy not only gives the building a smaller physical and environmental footprint, but speeds the passage of patients from entry to ward to Oregon.

The 2011 jury was chaired by Larry Speck, FAIA.

Seattle Children's Bellevue Clinic

Images courtesy of AIA.