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ARCHITECTURE
& DESIGN

Innovations

In Healthcare Design

Architecture Keeping Pace with Medicine

By David Alex Schulz, CHP

Healthcare delivery sites are challenged to evolve as quickly as being uncomfortable, confusing, or scary as durability and prac-
the applied science they host. From the time Joseph Lister’s sterile ticality have traditionally eclipsed comfort.
surgery inspired the Johnson Brothers to invent aseptic surgical Now, the time has come for health and wellness design to exist
equipment, medicine enjoyed a century and a half of constant in harmony with functionality, efficiency, and aesthetics; when
change based on research. Has the architecture and design of they do, remarkable results occur.
healthcare delivery kept pace with accelerated changes in science? Take the Mays Cancer Treatment Center at UT Health San An-
We spoke with two noted San Antonio healthcare architects: tonio, one of Long’s projects. Twenty years ago, infusion centers
Jason Puchot, Principal at RVK Architects and current President were essentially large, open rooms with recliners all lined up so
of the American Institute of Architects San Antonio Chapter, the staff could observe. Instead, “We took a family-centered ap-
and whose practice has a focus exclusively on healthcare design; proach, providing patients more space and flexibility to turn their
and Tiffany Robinson Long, Associate Partner at Marmon Mok treatment chairs to look out the floor-to-ceiling windows and
Architecture serving healthcare clients and the chair of AIA’s enjoy the nature and city that surrounds them. There are also
Healthcare Knowledge Community. comfortable accommodations for family and friends to be with
“Health and wellness architecture definitely plays by a strict set the patients to keep them company during treatments and engage
of rules,” began Long. “You have to consider daily life-or-death in the recovery process.”
scenarios, the constant need to have impenetrable and sterilized With the Center’s maxim, “We're here for you long after treat-
surfaces, or the endless rotation of patients with varying medical ment ends,” the design features a second floor with a teaching
conditions.” As a result, hospitals often have the reputation of kitchen, living room space, resource library, and a very inviting

18 San Antonio Medicine • September 2018