On May 1, after a 10-year odyssey of intensive planning, design, and construction, Northwestern Memorial’s vision came to life with the opening of its new two-million-sq.ft. (185,800 m2), high-rise medical center on a compact site in the heart of downtown Chicago.
The US $580 million facility takes its place as one of the world’s most progressive medical centers. The new Northwestern Memorial Hospital includes the 22-story Galter Outpatient Pavilion, the 17-story, 492-bed Feinberg Inpatient Pavilion, and an adjacent 2,000-car parking structure. Separate entries lead into the ambulatory and inpatient towers, which are connected by an eight-story base containing shared diagnostic and treatment areas and public spaces.
“Patients First” forms building foundation
Northwestern Memorial gave life to its Patients First philosophy by building its essence into the design process. The design team’s facility planners and designers understood that, as stewards for the institution’s future, Northwestern Memorial’s leaders would question how each design decision sustained the hospital’s guiding principle of delivering the highest quality patient care. The project would succeed only if it expressed that Patients First philosophy through both the architectural form and the internal planning concepts.
“Developing an understanding of Northwestern Memorial was what the project was all about,” said Rebel Roberts, VOA’s director of design. “We’ve created a setting for people — a place where patients feel that caregivers truly care about them.”
“The design team immersed itself in our culture and objectives,” noted Gary A. Mecklenburg, president and chief executive officer of Northwestern Memorial. “They articulated our vision in designing an environment that comforts patients and their families, responds to staff and technological needs, and provides superior, fiscally responsible health care.”
Northwestern Memorial reinvents itself
A major institution like Northwestern Memorial Hospital rarely has the opportunity to reinvent itself. Yet that’s exactly the position Northwestern found itself in during the late 1980s, when its leaders began thinking about replacing the hospital’s aging facilities and consolidating its diverse physician group practices with a new medical center in downtown Chicago.
Northwestern Memorial’s just-completed facility redevelopment is unrivaled in health care. Nobody in the U.S. has built a project that combines this wide scope of ambulatory and inpatient programs. It is a new generation hospital that recognizes the increasing importance of providing flexible ambulatory care space that is not subordinate to the hospital. Ambulatory care has matured, and this building has redefined the mix.
