Honor Awards
 
 
 
  

UNBUILT | HONOR  

Entry Name: Saint Anthony Hospital
Firm: HDR Architecture, Inc.
Owner: Saint Anthony Hospital

Gone are the days of the monolithic hospital complex, looming above its neighbors. With the advent of public healthcare, hospitals can no longer be hermitically sealed from their surrounds; rather, they must embrace the communities in which they reside (shouldn’t it have been this way, all along?).

The site, for Saint Anthony’s new hospital, affords a supreme opportunity for change. Located in Near Southwest Chicago, it is at once one of the most vibrant, yet blighted, neighborhoods in the city. Acting as both an anchor and a change agent, the hospital is envisioned as an urban campus that fosters a relationship between the hospital and its community. The two are intrinsically linked by a “circulatory system” – a band of food and retail markets, fitness centers, etc. that runs along the second floor of the building. This system serves as the interface between the world of healthcare and the world beyond, and it literally brings the two together – a new paradigm in the industry. Furthermore, the building treads lightly on the site. Its ground floor is wrapped with glass and its grounds are replete with wellness gardens, soccer fields, and basketball courts.

It only seems fitting that a hospital should become the heart of its community.

Jury Comments: A very large complex program organized very clearly on site and shifts paradigm of what one expects a hospital to be and creates a place of wellness instead of a place of illness. Notion of creating 2nd floor community center – where hospital becomes a part of their life instead of a place they only go when ill.

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