"Architectural style is linked with a place," says AECOM design principal Mic Johnson, AIA. "Place is linked to a particular group of people. It comes from what people really need to survive, to make their lives comfortable, to grow, to learn."

AECOM's approach to planning and design creates healthcare developments that represent the communities they serve while addressing the specific needs of the individual. "In every place in the world where we have designed significant hospitals, these two cultural goals were present and solved to ensure that the buildings fit into the community," says Mic.

"The hospital is perhaps the most important cultural building," says Mic. "It helps each of us start life; supports us through life; and for many of us, helps us meet the end of our lives. It is the quality of this experience in terms of function, aesthetics and cultural fit that our healthcare design experience and process seeks to address. Healthcare developments are at the center of sustaining life and at the heart of the future city."

Designing this cultural building as a vital and enduring piece of a community depends upon architecture as collective expression of all that makes up a place.

For the Yonsei University Medical Center Severance Hospital, several important aspects of Korean culture were instructive to the design team. Traditional architectural elements were found in city gates, temples and palace grounds, and monuments and temples in the countryside. The influences of natural light, wind and water were also carefully considered and incorporated.

The integration of daily life activities into the hospital and clinic areas was an important cultural imperative for patients, visitors and staff to stimulate both wellness and a sense of community. Large public gathering spaces were planned internally and externally to engage and delight the patients, visitors and staff in traditional Korean art and music programs.

"Through the expansion and modernization of the Minneapolis campus of Children's Hospitals and Clinics of Minnesota, we had an unprecedented opportunity to merge architecture, landscape and art in a way that will ultimately transform the healthcare experience of children and families," says Mic. The Minneapolis project will also establish a revitalized sense of place and urban renewal along Chicago Avenue, a primary corridor for the city.

"The architecture is not institutional or imposing; the scale is pedestrian focused, with familiar materials and qualities that make the campus feel connected to its larger urban context," says Mic. That context includes new solar light sculptures, named the "Healing Stones," designed by internationally known artist Brad Goldberg, and a weekly farmer's market on the hospital's plaza.

Healthcare forms a key component of New Orleans' BioDistrict, an urban regeneration project of 1,500 acres that seeks to leverage the presence of multiple institutions to develop a globally competitive Biosciences industry. AECOM's comprehensive district planning services will recommend specific infrastructure, facility and public domain concepts to capture these opportunities.

"Healthcare expansion is the catalyst for improving overall quality of life within the BioDistrict, through increased higher-paying jobs, expanding education and workforce training, improving K-12 schools and other community social service facilities, replacing outdated infrastructure with modern utilities and infrastructure and creating vibrant neighborhoods," says Michael DelGiudice, urban design lead for the project.

AECOM has called upon skills in campus planning, urban design, land use entitlements, livable transportation, landscape architecture, ecology, wayfinding and visioning facilitation in a strategic advisory role for the Orlando Regional Medical Center (ORMC) in Florida.

Design + Planning principal Peter Sechler explains, "We have led ORMC to better appreciate the value of the campus environment as part of their patient-centered model of care. The result is specific projects supporting a livable, healing exterior environment. We have also led them to better appreciate the leadership role of Orlando Health within the immediate downtown environment. The result is a series of interactions and initiatives guided by AECOM which have allowed Orlando Health to enhance their partnership with the city."

The Children's Hospital in Denver, Colorado, is one of the early reinvestment projects at a former military site and impacts a large residential region of the east end of the city. The hospital's development has made significant green open space accessible to a neighborhood previously known for poor environmental quality. AECOM provided landscape architecture services, addressing both specific healing purposes and the provision of societal open space.

"Integrating healthcare with the daily life of the city works beneficially in both directions," says Roger Courtenay, landscape architecture principal for AECOM. "Open space amenities are offered to the public while patients, family and staff are made to feel a part of what becomes a more full society."

Jake Herson

Jake Herson