One of the highlights of working on this month’s profile of the Mayo Clinic’s Gonda Building was the opportunity to get world-renowned architect Cesar Pelli to discuss his role on the project and his views on healing environments.
The designer of Malaysia’s Petronas Twin Towers and other high-profile buildings, Pelli is one of a small constellation of superstars of architecture whose names alone can often add prestige to a new project.
While celebrated talents like Pelli and others are lending their expertise to health care design, they are also partnering with firms that have greater health care experience and a more intimate knowledge of the industry’s specifications, rules and demands. This is no surprise, given that health care can be a world unto itself, where knowledge gained elsewhere does not always transfer and experience is the coin of the realm.
Patient safety, traffic flow, department adjacencies, security, equipment planning, MEP infrastructures and other issues all call for a unique approach to health care design and construction.
To help verify such skills, a number of industry-driven initiatives have recently grown, including the American College of Healthcare Architects (www.healtharchitects.org) certification program for health facility designers, the American Society for Healthcare Engineering’s (www.ashe.org) Healthcare Construction Certificate education program for contractors, and a fledgling program by the American Academy of Healthcare Interior Designers (www.aahid.org) to certify their professionals.
Given that health facility design and construction can literally be a matter of life and death, such initiatives are of no small importance.
Mike Hrickiewicz
To respond to this article, please click here.
Click here for a FREE subscription to Health Facilities Management.
