|
New Prentice Women's Hospital
A More Feminine
Architecture Style
by Paula Widholm
A refined newcomer is emerging on the Northwestern Memorial
Hospital Campus in Chicago's Streeterville neighborhood.
A feminine architectural style of the 950,000-sq.-ft. New
Prentice Women's Hospital under construction at Superior Street
and Fairbanks Avenue reflects its future women patients. The
$502 million building has 18 floors.
|
The Power/Jacobs Joint Venture, the same team that built the
2.1-million-sq.-ft. Northwestern Memorial Hospital Feinberg
and Galter Pavilions, is the construction manager/owner representative.
Power is based in northwest suburban Schaumburg, and Jacobs
is headquartered in Pasadena, Calif.
The 257-bed New Prentice will be able to accommodate 13,500
births annually. It will include 32 labor and delivery rooms;
four cesarean section rooms; and seven prep/holding/recovery
rooms.
There will be 134 obstetric beds for postpartum and antepartum
care; 144 normal newborn bassinets; 86 special care nursery
beds; a 36-bed women's care unit with 28 beds for gynecology/gynecological
oncology patients; eight beds for breast and plastic surgery
patients; a surgical unit with 10 operating rooms; and 30
prep/holding/recovery rooms.
The New Prentice will house the largest comprehensive breast
center in the Midwest including breast imaging (screening
and diagnostic mammography), breast surgery evaluation (breast
clinic) and radiation oncology.
Inpatient and outpatient diagnostic services will include
ultrasound, genetic counseling, chest X-ray, CT scan, MRI,
fluoroscopy and phlebotomy.
Also included are a florist, maternity shop, gift shop, bookstore,
coffee shop, chapel, dining and room service, family-focused
waiting areas and an education and conference center.
Artwork representative of women and their diversity will hang
throughout the new facility.
A Building with a Curve
While the south facade of the steel-framed New Prentice clearly
resembles the recently built Northwestern Memorial Hospital's
rich stone and glass fabric, the east facade offers a gentle
curve that leads to a pure glass and metal corner at Chicago
and Fairbanks avenues, providing expansive views of a public
park and Lake Michigan.
"It's a family oriented, feminine building," said
Rebel Roberts, president of VOA in Chicago and design partner
for the VOA/OWP/P Joint Venture, the architect. "It's a
little lighter on its feet and more finely detailed with architectural
precast concrete. The horizontal metal and glass skin has a
little design finesse."
This "feminine" building, which is scheduled to open
in late 2007, is paired at the portal to the hospital campus
with the more massive, masculine Montgomery Ward building on
the southeast corner of Chicago and Fairbanks, Roberts added.
Also, the tops of the other buildings on the campus are stone
with a clear edge between the roof and the sky. The New Prentice
building, however, has a translucent glass top providing ambiguity
between the sky and the face of the building.
"It's a softer, gentler feel as the building ascends,"
Roberts said.
Inside Out Design
Despite the nod to femininity on the exterior, Roberts said
"the building was designed from the inside out. Starting
at the entrance, there's easy, convenient safe access to the
building with covered drop-off access via Superior Street,
which doesn't have heavy traffic."
Also, with a three-story glass atrium entrance, "prospective
patients can see inside and not be confused about where to
go or what to do," he said.
The public base is for evaluation and triage. Prospective
patients "don't come in and go to the elevators,"
Roberts said.
After evaluation, "expectant moms have a discrete entrance
to patient elevators that lead to labor delivery rooms, which
are set close to recovery/ postpartum rooms," Roberts
added.
In addition to designing for the progressive stages of a patient,
the family-oriented three-story base considers the public
as well. "The second-floor cafeteria is visible from
the first floor," Roberts said. "The public can
see those destinations without getting lost in a large building."
Patient rooms line the perimeter on the upper floors. "A
lot of the outpatient areas are almost spa-like with the colors,
textures, lighting and fabrics which are used to present a
relaxing, noninstitutional, safe setting," Roberts said.
Another design driver was providing an efficient flow of services.
"Northwestern always had a wonderful obstetrical practice
and great women's care throughout its numerous facilities,"
said Chris Liakakos, principal and lead planner of Chicago-based
OWP/P, a member of the VOA/OWP/P Joint Venture. "Now
they're coming together. All the women's services will be
integrated and comprehensive in one facility."
Departments and services within the New Prentice are also
placed close to each other. "Flow and adjacency of services
was important to the early planning process, to always service
the patient in a way that's most convenient for whatever given
treatment," Liakakos said.
More than 60 user groups from the Northwestern staff, including
administrative, nursing, and medical staff, met repeatedly
throughout the process to assist in the design. Recently,
the construction team mocked up three separate lighting systems
for the medical staff to evaluate. To ensure the latest in
technology, many medical systems will be ordered at the last
possible minute.
The architectural team consisted of more than 40 people, working
together with about 30 consultants to design spaces for technology
that doesn't currently exist and allowing for flexibility
for the future. "We think we provided for all known unknowns,"
Roberts said.
Planners also toured top women's hospitals in other cities
to help determine how to organize services and departments.
"We wanted to not only design the best and most appropriate
for current delivery systems, but develop it so it was flexible
to continue to grow as volumes increased," Liakakos said.
The New Prentice replaces the 31-year-old Prentice Pavilion
and will match the high-class facilities of Feinberg and Galter.
"The people at Prentice have been laboring away in a
building that's way outdated," Roberts said.
The Team
The construction delivery method of letting work by bid packages
vs. traditional design-bid-build saved a minimum of 12 to 18
months in the overall project schedule, said Patrick Newman,
managing director of Power/Jacobs.
"We partnered with the right subs and got the biggest bang
for the buck," Newman said. "We didn't have one general
contractor run all the trades. We picked the plumber, electrical,
precast, curtain wall, etc., so we don't pay overhead or major
markups. "We were able to fast track to individual contractors
and control the progress and process from beginning to end.
We oversee 40 prime contractors and have individual contracts
with the contractors."
Newman said the proactive, team approach provided the following
results:
$30 million in prebid, value-engineered savings and $6.2 million
in postbid value-engineered savings.
Accommodation of an additional two full floors of patient
care buildout ($17 million) without any project schedule slippage.
Accommodation of major departmental shifting, involving eight
of 18 floors at the beginning of the build-out stage, without
impacting schedule or cost.
The facility, with one level below grade, features high ceilings
and intricate mechanical systems. For example, bathrooms don't
line up throughout the structure, and large HVAC ductwork weaves
around in unconventional ways.
"Each floor is a new adventure," said Jay Meyer, general
superintendent of Power/Jacobs. "The hospital is not a
typical high-rise building. It requires more attention to detail
and higher coordination."
Four outside hoists serviced the job and accelerated construction,
and four inside elevator cars move workers and materials. Extensive
sprinklers, electric, plumbing and HVAC are layered above the
ceiling with those that require the least access set higher
and the those that need the most access set lower.
The mechanical engineers "have to be respectful of other
disciplines to coordinate and install the systems," Meyer
said. To do this, a "war room" was set up with a large
conference table where mechanical engineers study detailed drawings.
Coordination meetings are held Mondays and Tuesdays.
The nuclear medicine accelerator rooms in the basement are encased
in 3-ft.-thick ceilings and walls and a 1-ft.-thick floor built
with heavy density aggregate to retain what may escape from
the linear accelerator.
Two underground tunnels, one for medical staff and the other
for the public, connect the New Prentice to Feinberg and Galter.
Click
here for Next Feature >>
|
print this page
e-mail this page
