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
| Jan 31, 2011
CISCA releases White Paper on Acoustics in Healthcare Environments
The Ceilings & Interior Systems Construction Association (CISCA) has released an extensive white paper “Acoustics in Healthcare Environments” for architects, interior designers, and other design professionals who work to improve healthcare settings for all users. This white paper serves as a comprehensive introduction to the acoustical issues commonly confronted on healthcare projects and howbest to address those.
| Jan 27, 2011
Perkins Eastman's report on senior housing signals a changing market
Top international design and architecture firm Perkins Eastman is pleased to announce that the Perkins Eastman Research Collaborative recently completed the “Design for Aging Review 10 Insights and Innovations: The State of Senior Housing” study for the American Institute of Architects (AIA). The results of the comprehensive study reflect the changing demands and emerging concepts that are re-shaping today’s senior living industry.
| Jan 21, 2011
Harlem facility combines social services with retail, office space
Harlem is one of the first neighborhoods in New York City to combine retail with assisted living. The six-story, 50,000-sf building provides assisted living for residents with disabilities and a nonprofit group offering services to minority groups, plus retail and office space.
| Jan 21, 2011
Research center built for interdisciplinary cooperation
The Jan and Dan Duncan Neurological Research Institute at Texas Children’s Hospital, in Houston, the first basic research institute for childhood neurological diseases, is a 13-story twisting tower in the center of the hospital campus.
| Jan 19, 2011
Biomedical research center in Texas to foster scientific collaboration
The new Health and Biomedical Sciences Center at the University of Houston will facilitate interaction between scientists in a 167,000-sf, six-story research facility. The center will bring together researchers from many of the school’s departments to collaborate on interdisciplinary projects. The facility also will feature an ambulatory surgery center for the College of Optometry, the first of its kind for an optometry school. Boston-based firms Shepley Bulfinch and Bailey Architects designed the project.
| Jan 19, 2011
New Fort Hood hospital will replace aging medical center
The Army Corps of Engineers selected London-based Balfour Beatty and St. Louis-based McCarthy to provide design-build services for the Fort Hood Replacement Hospital in Texas, a $503 million, 944,000-sf complex partially funded by the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act. The firm plans to use BIM for the project, which will include outpatient clinics, an ambulance garage, a central utility plant, and three parking structures. Texas firms HKS Architects and Wingler & Sharp will participate as design partners. The project seeks LEED Gold.
| Jan 10, 2011
Michael J. Alter, president of The Alter Group: ‘There’s a significant pent-up demand for projects’
Michael J. Alter, president of The Alter Group, a national corporate real estate development firm headquartered in Skokie, Ill., on the growth of urban centers, project financing, and what clients are saying about sustainability.
| Dec 17, 2010
ARRA-funded Navy hospital aims for LEED Gold
The team of Clark/McCarthy, HKS Architects, and Wingler & Sharp are collaborating on the design of a new naval hospital at Camp Pendleton in Southern California. The $451 million project is the largest so far awarded by the U.S. Navy under the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act. The 500,000-sf, 67-bed hospital, to be located on a 70-acre site, will include facilities for emergency and primary care, specialty care clinics, surgery, and intensive care. The Building Team is targeting LEED Gold.
| Dec 17, 2010
Arizona outpatient cancer center to light a ‘lantern of hope’
Construction of the Banner MD Anderson Cancer Center in Gilbert, Ariz., is under way. Located on the Banner Gateway Medical Center campus near Phoenix, the three-story, 131,000-sf outpatient facility will house radiation oncology, outpatient imaging, multi-specialty clinics, infusion therapy, and various support services. Cannon Design incorporated a signature architectural feature called the “lantern of hope” for the $90 million facility.
| Oct 18, 2010
World’s first zero-carbon city on track in Abu Dhabi
Masdar City, the world’s only zero-carbon city, is on track to be built in Abu Dhabi, with completion expected as early as 2020. Foster + Partners developed the $22 billion city’s master plan, with Adrian Smith + Gordon Gill Architecture, Aedas, and Lava Architects designing buildings for the project’s first phase, which is on track to be ready for occupancy by 2015.
