An Architectural Critique: The Center for Advanced Medicine by Cannon Design
Driving into the main entry is really quite an awful experience however. There are three lanes for traffic and the one lane dedicated to patient drop off is located farthest away from the building! Not sure who thought of sticking the valet/patient drop-off so far away but didn't they realize that these patients have caretakers and and cannot get to their appointments alone? Not to mention that once a patient and caretaker gives their car to valet, they then must cross two lanes of traffic to reach the main entry. What a disaster!
But then, the designers redeem themselves by providing these fantastic rotating doors with a push-button option to slow the swing speed to accommodate the wheel chair and caretaker who often move together very slowly. Marvelous! Then you enter into this majestic ten story plus atrium flooded with natural light and walk across very smooth, glistening, beautiful terrazzo to reach the elevator bank. The lobby's terrazzo floor, sweeping curved walls, light blue tinted glass railings wrapping the atrium for several stories and easy way-finding truly provide a sense of arrival. The downside is that the atrium proportions seem a bit squished to me even though it's a great architectural space which makes you feel good. You feel healthy in that space. I also love the fact that there are no tacky holiday decorations in the lobby to denote that it's Halloween or Christmas etc. The absence of those horrendous personal gestures keeps the building focused on healing. It also helps show-off the architecture for which I'm thrilled.
Some of the waiting rooms for the doctors' offices on the upper levels are also squished...and I can visualize the different schematic design sketches on tracing paper which perhaps show the trade-off between the atrium trying to be as wide as possible (it's still squished) and the waiting rooms becoming narrower and narrower with every sketch line. It's almost as though there was a plan issue from the beginning with the atrium's final width never being fully resolved. Perhaps the challenges started with the building's footprint or setback lines. Who knows? Nevertheless, the designers did achieve the full effect of the gracious and simply lit atrium; it still makes you feel fabulous and is very healing.
Healthcare interiors are often so unattractive (even today with so many great new products and textiles) and many healthcare interiors just try too hard to get away from that reputation of being unattractive, and so designers opt for unnecessary creativity instead. The CAM building's interiors are so well-chosen and peaceful and there's no pretense or big effort to be creative. I love the perfect wood benches at the elevator lobbies on the upper floors. Not only are they so 'Vladamir Kagan' (okay, not exactly) but they are warm and very comfortable. The art work through-out is fantastic: it brings high-gloss, color and nature into the building. It's also beautifully framed in the same consistent warm woods. The casework is consistent in each department and is a well-designed art-deco style. I like the building's different architectural surprises such as different floor pattern cut-outs mirroring the ceiling soffit cut-outs. I love seeing design surprises like those. I'm impressed with the tilework on the restroom floors and walls. The lighting is so successful everywhere in the building but particularly at the elevator lobbies where domed ceilings cover those restful wood benches. My suggestion to the environmental operations (aka housekeeping) is that they select a less pungeant restroom air fragrance because chemo patients are so, so sensitive to smell and taste and the current fragrance is truly sickening to patients.
Overall, the CAM building is a wonderful healthcare building which makes you feel great and this is what healing and good architecture is all about.
It's hard to take a bad pic of this building:)
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