Gensler is an integrated architecture, planning, and design firm with offices in 50 major cities across 5 continents. A global industry leader, the firm strives to improve the world through design with the help of its 6,000+ employees who deal with a wide range of clients and building typologies. The firm’s commitment to inventive, appealing, efficient, and sustainable design has gained worldwide renown and won numerous accolades for its projects. Gensler is particularly prolific within the healthcare and wellness sectors, where they design hospitals, clinics, medical research or specialized care facilities, incubation centers, and headquarters for healthcare providers or pharmaceutical companies. Below is the list of 15 Healthcare projects by Gensler:
1. Shirley Ryan AbilityLab | Healthcare Projects
Project Location: Chicago, USA
Status: Completed 2017
Gensler partnered with HDR, Clive Wilkinson Architects, and ECG Office for this award-winning, 1,200,000 sq. ft, 27 storey glass curtain-walled facility. It was to serve as a ‘translational’ research hospital where professionals with various specializations across the field of medicine combined, expanded and applied their knowledge in real-time to treat patients with severe and complicated conditions. It possesses ‘front’ and ‘back’ stage spaces for patient interaction and study/discussion respectively. The colourful layered interior patterns on its walls, floors, ceilings, railings, and covered terraces along with double-height windows, were included to create a more patient-friendly environment, as a departure from the often drab double-loaded corridors within hospitals.
2. Cook County Health & Hospitals System, Central Campus Health Center
Project Location: Chicago, USA
Status: Completed 2019
Clayco, the design-builder hired Gensler as the design architect who, in collaboration with several other renowned firms, designed the new Central Campus Health System for the Cook County Health and Hospitals Systems in Chicago, which replaced the old Fantus Clinic on its site. The facility was to provide specialty outpatient care and link to a nearby inpatient hospital. Occupying 103,000 sq. ft of adaptive clinical space and 137,000 sq. ft of administrative space, the 9-storey structure consists of a braced steel frame on a bell caisson foundation, with curtain walls and unitized GFRC panels on the facade which features the organization’s branding. Warm, elegant, and functional elements define its interior environment.
3. Mount Sinai Health System Offices | Healthcare Projects
Project Location: New York, USA
Status: Completed 2016
Gensler was contracted to design the Manhattan headquarters for one of New York’s premier hospital groups. The task was challenging and entailed relocating over 2,000 employees to a renovated 450,000 sq. ft space over six floors. With the imperative to design a collaborative and interactive space, the new offices include a landscaped terrace, communal cafe, think tank spaces, team areas, and social hubs for co-operative innovation. Partitions are employed ingeniously, as seen in the sculptural textured concrete installation in a breakout area that doubles as seating, or slanted metal louvres and coloured frosted glass. A restricted colour palette of predominantly gray and white tones is utilized, accented with blue, pink, green, and yellow hues.
4. Tulsa Cancer Institute
Project Location: Tulsa, USA
Status: Completed 2014
The Tulsa Cancer Institute was the result of an information-driven design process that incorporated discussions with doctors on the intricacies of cancer treatment. Gensler resolved to arrange the building’s program elements on two floors around a courtyard which made nature a focal point and healing element. The building facade is decidedly modern with ribbon windows and exterior cladding panels with 22 percent of the building materials manufactured with recycled materials, and 20 percent of them sourced from within 500 miles of the site. The institute is LEED-certified and generates 35% of its electricity from renewable sources.
5. Moffitt Cancer Center Shared Resources Laboratories | Healthcare Projects
Project Location: Tampa, USA
Status: Completed 2015
Gensler was commissioned to consolidate the laboratories and offices of the Moffitt Cancer Center within a former vivarium. It is the only National Cancer Institute-designated Comprehensive Cancer Center based in Florida and brought together previously isolated core labs into a single facility. With a concept that revolved around a ‘Showcase for Science’, Gensler employed glazed lab fronts in the style of retail windows, and a circulatory route that doubled as a tour path for patients and donors, to exhibit the groundbreaking work done at the facility and encourage interaction. The interiors are vibrant, sleek, and modern with clean lines and functional furnishings.
6. Celularity
Project Location: New Jersey, USA
Status: Completed 2020
Celularity approached Gensler to renovate an old office building which was to serve as a new headquarters and bio-manufacturing facility for the clinical-stage cell-therapeutics company, with a deadline of 323 days. The first phase involved the partial demolition and retrofitting of the old building, following which the design team implemented their solution that presented the facility as a journey for visitors. Labs were put on display to patients, investors, and new hires through the use of glazed partitions to provide a sneak peek into the workings of the company’s cutting-edge research. Restrained neutral tones combined with the company’s colours are employed here, with utilitarian fittings and design elements.
7. Partners Healthcare
Project Location: Somerville, USA
Status: Completed 2016
The new Partners Healthcare campus initially arose from a feasibility study that Gensler was hired to conduct. It evaluated the relocation of 4,500 staff from multiple locations across the Boston area to a single workplace. The building rises to 13 floors, ten of which are designed as ‘workplace neighbourhoods’ with an emphasis on the open-office model to foster interaction and collaboration. The facade features extensive glazing fixed to a grid, combined with exterior stone and composite cladding. Interior spaces employ accent lighting, light wood tones, and unique colour schemes to give each space its own character. The 825,000 sq. ft campus also incorporates landscaped terraces and extensive green space with outdoor seating.
8. Rehabilitation Institute of Chicago, Adaptive Fitness Center | Healthcare Projects
Project Location: Chicago, USA
Status: Completed 2016
The design of this 8,000 sq. ft space had to combine the functions of two previously separate programs in a single site. For this purpose, Gensler adopted a unified lobby space to centralize the support staff’s work areas and foster collaboration. A modern aesthetic and minimalist colour palette that consisted of white, grey, and orange were selected, with exposed ceilings and ductwork in the main fitness center area. Changing rooms that employ stone flooring along with combinations of white and orange tiles.
9. City Of Hope Rivergrade Administration Center
Project Location: Irwindale, USA
Status: Completed 2019
This administration center amalgamates the different arms of this independent biomedical research organization into a single space. A looped circulation route delineates communal zones and workspaces with images of City of Hope’s cancer survivors on the walls of hallways to reinforce the organization’s mission and values. An array of work areas including private meeting rooms, collaboration spaces, or workstations, employ grey and light wood hues contrasted by blue or green accents. Exposed ductwork and accented strip lights are prominent along with large, glazed partitions that visually connect private and shared spaces.
10. Center For Device Innovation, Texas Medical Center | Healthcare Projects
Project Location: Houston, USA
Status: Completed 2017
Located in a repurposed cookie factory, the Center For Device Innovation at Texas Medical Center is a maker space where engineers, physicians, and designers collaborate to design and manufacture cutting-edge medical devices. The facility hosts a modern machine shop, wet lab, electronics lab, and a 3D printing lab. Its open, adaptive work environment encourages interaction, with phone rooms, a virtual reality suite, and a cafe. The double-height space with exposed ceilings permits natural light to flood it and honours its industrial past, while also fitting its current purpose. Perhaps its most noticeable feature is the conference space housed within a blue shipping container.
11. Star Clinic and Housing for Health Office
Project Location: Los Angeles, USA
Status: Completed 2014
As part of the Los Angeles County Department of Health Services’ ‘Housing for Health’ initiative to house the city’s homeless, Gensler designed the clinic and offices for the Star Apartments complex. The 2,400 sq. ft Housing for Health office has polished concrete floors, a reclaimed wood desk, and storefront windows. The 1,300 sq. ft Star Clinic has an open mezzanine level which allows health workers to conduct discussions, as the facility dispenses both in-house treatment and counseling to the complex’s residents in its five examination rooms.
12. Alzheimer’s Association
Project Location: Houston, USA
Status: Completed 2014
The idea behind the renovation of the Houston and Southeast Texas chapter of the Alzheimer’s Association’s headquarters was to create a space of calm and healing. The firm included abundant green space with walking paths, gardens, fountains, and a patio. The first floor is public-focused and houses areas for the chapter’s services and programs while the second floor contains administrative spaces. Exposed brick walls, wooden floors, large windows, and warm, earthy tones characterize the space and a paper sculpture made by early-stage clients adorns the lobby entrance.
13. OhioHealth Neuroscience Wellness Center | Healthcare Projects
Project Location: Columbus, USA
Status: Opening 2021
OhioHealth engaged Gensler to design a facility for the rehabilitation of patients dealing with serious neurological conditions. With a commitment to developing a space that offers holistic care to such patients beyond conventional institutions, the Neuroscience Wellness Center is designed around a central courtyard on a ridge with views of the surrounding forest. It houses an interior walking track that wraps the courtyard, wellness studios, flexible classrooms, a geriatric clinic, a cafe, a kitchen, and an administration workspace. Large windows permit daylight to enter the 28,000 sq. ft building and provide views of the surrounding forest.
14. Community Hospital @Yishun Singapore
Project Location: Yishun, Singapore
Status: Competition
Gensler partnered with HDR for this competition entry that yielded a hospital design based on the concept of a rainforest or living organism that utilized the energy derived from the sun, land, and the elements of weather to promote healing. Its design featured a two-storey public plaza, a four-storey podium for rehabilitation and outpatient care, seven stories of inpatient wards, a roof canopy, and vertical landscaping. The hospital attempts to harness the benefits of cutting edge medical technology without losing sight of the human element of healing. Large overhangs, extensive greenery, and locally sourced materials characterize its ambience.
15. TMC3 Translational Research Campus | Healthcare Projects
Project Location: Houston, USA
Staus: Concept
This 1,500,000 sq. ft addition to the Texas Medical Center Campus is a trailblazing exercise in planning and design that sought to consolidate various collegiate, research, and healthcare institutions within the University of Texas’ Health System into a single location. The campus features a double helix layout that references the structure of DNA with a large central piazza that hosts landscaped areas as well as recreational, residential, and commercial space. Two lines of academic buildings enclosed the double helix on either side of the 30-acre site.
