ACHA Legacy Project Award Program 2017

Since its inception in 2013, the Legacy Project Award represents the highest honor that the ACHA can bestow upon a project - a testament to its lasting impact on how healthcare facilities are designed. This award recognizes healthcare architecture that has and continues to demonstrate superior planning and excellence in design performance over an extended period of time, and remains of enduring significance.

2017 ACHA LEGACY PROJECT AWARD WINNER

Announcing the 2017 Legacy Project Award winner: Bronson Methodist Hospital Kalamazoo, Michigan

Bronson Methodist Hospital Architects: Shepley Bulfinch Nominated by: Jennifer Aliber, AIA, FACHA

2017 ACHA LEGACY PROJECT AWARD WINNER

“As one of the first facilities to embrace research to support its new ideas, from patient care to practice integration to the constructive use of amenity, this facility (the process and the product) was a catalyst to shifting staff thinking and attitude.

This is a large facility held together with some strong wayfinding elements that also contribute to its special nature. Within the facility, functional integration and adjacencies were important, and both patient centered, as well as efficient to operate."

Completed in 2000, the replacement facility for Bronson Methodist Hospital is a model for best practice and transformative facility design. The “New Bronson” was one of the Center for Health Design’s inaugural Pebble Projects, striving to create a ripple effect in the healthcare community by documenting the results of evidence-based design and “patient-centered” care. Sixteen years after it was built, the replacement hospital continues to set the standard for exemplary healthcare design and the pursuit of quality in healthcare delivery.

Prior to the construction of the replacement hospital, Bronson had struggled with an increased demand for services but had grown haphazardly, resulting in a disorganized configuration with multiple entries, poor adjacencies, and limitations for the development of key diagnostic and treatment departments.

The city of Kalamazoo was also facing economic disruption as a number of large, long-standing community employers relocated or went out of business. It was decided to build the replacement hospital on a 14-acre site adjoining the current location, representing Bronson’s commitment to the downtown Kalamazoo community.

The following design traits were some of the major factors that made Bronson such an influential healthcare facility: the “Horizontal Hospital” concept, private patient rooms, “one-stop-shopping” model and the healing powers of nature, daylight and art.

2017 ACHA LEGACY PROJECT AWARD FINALIST

Community Hospital of the Monterey Peninsula Architect: HOK Nominated by: Cynthia Keeffe, AIA, ACHA

Located on a promontory between Monterey and Carmel, within the beautiful oak and pine old-growth Del Monte Forest, a white horizontal structure can be seen among dark strongly vertical trees. The Community Hospital of the Monterey Peninsula (CHOMP) defies immediate recognition as a medical facility.

Unlike most buildings which are designed on the square, CHOMP was designed on a bi-symmetrical diagonal axis, with the building entry at a corner. The axis itself was a series of solids and voids—that is, building and enclosed garden, building and open fountain court and so forth. This pattern maximized views to the outdoors and also increased natural light. It also affected how people moved through the spaces, always toward or alongside a view.

“It is clear that the patient centered philosophies have been consistent since the facility’s inception and were the inspirations for the recent expansions. The look and feel is seamless from inside and out. The building’s special and unique character inspires that same high level of ‘touch’ with the patient care.”

2017 Legacy Project Award Jury: Jury Chair: Dan Rectenwald, AIA, ACHA COO, HGA, Minneapolis, MN Don McKahan, AIA, FACHA McKahan Planning Group, San Diego, CA Carolyn Rhee, FACHE CEO, Olive View-UCLA Medical Center James Mladucky, AIA, ACHA, CCS IU Health, Indianapolis, IN Bill Sabatini, FAIA, ACHA Principal, Dekker Perich Sabatini, Albuquerque, NM

The American College of Healthcare Architects provides certification for architects who practice as healthcare specialists. Our body of certificate holders includes healthcare architects throughout the United States and Canada with specialized skills and proven expertise. ACHA is the first specialty certification program to be recognized by the American Institute of Architects.