Stantec Inc is a leading international engineering service company that values design with community in mind. The expert department professionals initiate together to generate community creatively, and client connections to produce quality public spaces to be a better world. Their work is varied with different kinds of designs but the bone that grabs attention is the VA Puget Sound Health Care System building located in Seattle, Washington. The U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs’ vision is to design a space that helps men and women in internal health care to reduce the suicide rate in the US, the chance of adventure suicide is increased over the once 15 times. Santec provides1.7 a million stagers and is one of the largest healthcare in the United States with a point area of,629,000Sq.ft the structure construction is completed in 2019. The VA Puget Sounds H&VB is advancing health care installations for internal health disquisition, opinion and treatment for warhorses.
“ My goal is to break tough, complex planning problems to give my guests installations that support and delight both staff and cases. ” – Senior Medical Planner Larry Bongort
The ideology behind the design | VA Puget Sound Health Care System
The design was led by an expert healthcare developer and architect, Larry Bongort from Stantec in collaboration with the firm Design cooperation. The main ideology is to incorporate a connection to nature within spaces in the form of skylights and inner amphitheatres to make the space comfortable and safe. As the name indicates the sanitarium focuses on internal health care, and the connection to nature helps to produce a stress-free environment. The challenge in designing the structure was that it had to incorporate the old hospital blocks area and design that was suitable for steep terrains. The surface glass facade was welcoming and the entrance geography with atrium and car parking paved the connection between old blocks and was easy to pierce.
“The result is a welcoming, healing environment that reduces stress with a comforting atmosphere, easy and intuitive wayfinding, and strong connections with the outside,” – Architect Lawlor
The combination of architecture, interior and landscape architecture
The internal health and well-being of the cases depend largely on the structure terrain. By providing furnishing a yard on each bottom that helps connect the environment, each space has its out-of-door theatre links to make the space naturally connected. The structure is designed in a manner so that the veterans would feel calm, safe, comfortable and not claustrophobic in the space. The structure form and function is easy to move around the interior spaces with the flow without being lost in the structure. Research-based design of the colours of the interior space, and textures are minimal to encourage more calmness in the treatment environment.
The design conditions produce a private and semi-private zone that looks out into out-of-door geography to help with stress, anxiety and claustrophobia. The planning of consultation and examination rooms as private spaces, corridors, and waiting spaces are connected with out-of-door landscaping and divided by the curtain wall to give shade in hot weather. The interiors of the structure contain soft accoutrements, and neutral colours and give large openings to get natural light inside the structure developing the engagement between people. Social commerce in interior planning is achieved by breaking down the larger spaces into private counselling apartments through certain spaces connected with larger halls for group gatherings.
In the geography and point plan by Nakano Associates, the end goal is to design a comfortable and safe space terrain for stagers with the landscape being created in a case-friendly and environmentally sensitive way. Sustainable with exclusive design provides living better, helps the atmosphere and creates a better stopgap for the future. The structure was LEED tableware certified. To achieve LEED norms, handed huge windows in the lobby with solar-supported power, an unresistant system, an interior theatre, rainwater harvesting and a green roof.
Architecture of hope | VA Puget Sound Health Care System
The designers incorporated the balance between space, architecture and nature in the structure design for building hope in architectural aspects compactly designing the structure terrain suitable for the people, to create new possibilities for good. Green and public spaces help the users heal and calm their minds if people feel comfortable in freely moving areas. A calm environment leads to a decrease in the anxiety level and insecurity of the patients. The main goal of the building environment is to connect to ecology to improve a positive influence on human behaviour. Through the design, we can understand how architecture affects (building design, urban planning, landscape) human behaviour in a positive manner.The medical centre of the future looks nothing like the cold wave, clinical surroundings that used to define the medical practice. This is especially true in surroundings where the visual impact of the physical terrain is directly related to care results.
References:
Online sources
- Citations for Journal Articles accessed on a website or database:
Stantec.com. 2022. Company Overview https://www.stantec.com/en/about
- Citations for websites:
Staff, H., 2022. Seattle Unveils Robust New VA Center – HCO News. [online] Hconews.com. https://hconews.com/2019/08/06/seattle-unveils-robust-new-va-center/
- Citations for websites:
Nakanoassociates.http://www.nakanoassociates.com/portfolio/va-puget-sound-healthcare-campus/
Images/visual mediums
- http://www.nakanoassociates.com/portfolio/va-puget-sound-healthcare-campus/
- Staff, H., 2022. Seattle Unveils Robust New VA Center – HCO News. [online] Hconews.com. Available at: <https://hconews.com/2019/08/06/seattle-unveils-robust-new-va-center/> [Accessed 30 July 2022]
- https://www.medmaps.com/va-medical-centers/puget-sound-va
