Kaiser Permanente announces winners of Small Hospital Design Challenge

April 2, 2012—Kaiser Permanente, a national provider of health care and strong supporter of green building and sustainable hospital design, recently named both Aditazz and Mazzetti Nash Lipsey Burch (M+NLB) with Perkins+Will as winners in its international Small Hospital, Big Idea competition.

For the competition, the not-for-profit health plan and care provider invited students, designers, architects, engineers, and individuals everywhere to design a small hospital that evolves the way we deliver health care. Multidisciplinary teams were encouraged.

The Aditazz and M+NLB/ Perkins+Will teams were selected by a design jury for their small hospital designs that:

• Create spaces to inspire human-to-human connection and collaboration;
  
• Include civic spaces that blur the boundaries between the community and the traditional hospital setting;
  
• Bring nature inside with light-wells and rooms that are oriented around a large central courtyard, building on research that shows a positive correlation between exposure to nature and healing;
  
• Move beyond carbon neutrality to restore ecosystems and biodiversity, and improve the conditions for community health; and
  
• Make use of a unique tool that applies silicon-chip technology to the building and design process, enabling designers and frontline professionals to quickly explore an almost unlimited number of operational and space scenarios.

A rendering of the small hospital designed by Mazzetti Nash Lipsey Burch and Perkins+Will for the competition.

Designs were judged on such factors as efficiency, including their sustainability features; innovation; life-cycle costs, incorporation of methods to improve health outcomes; flexibility; and environment of care, including how successfully the design integrates the hospital into the local community.

Both Aditazz’s and M+NLB with Perkins+Will’s designs include compelling ideas for such features as intimate patient-healing gardens and vibrant public spaces, as well as onsite renewable energy systems, says Kaiser Permanente.

As winners, Aditazz and M+NLB with Perkins+Will are eligible to contract with Kaiser Permanente for a small hospital project. The new small hospital is tentatively planned for Southern California, and the model will be adapted for use in other markets as well.