Role: Architectural Designer;
Site Area: 20,000 sq. m.; GFA: 53,000 sq. m.;
Design Time: Apr. ~ Aug. 2007;
Awards:
2010 the International Architecture Award for Best New Global Design by the Chicago Athenaeum;
the Design Award of Special Recognition by the Pennsylvania SARA (Society of American Registered Architects) ;
an Honorable Mention in the Healthcare Sector by World Architecture News (WAN);
LEED Silver certification by USGBC.

This first phase of the three-phased master plan, completed in 2008 as a joint venture with Perkins Eastman, is a 1.3-million-square-foot ambulatory care and cancer center, designed to integrate the surgery, cardiology, imaging, and cancer departments of the UPENN health system into one state-of-the-art building. The building greatly increases the site’s density and offers a new public gathering space.

The Center for Advanced Medicine is a part of an overall master plan for current and future expansion. During construction of the Perelman Center, Rafael Viñoly Architects was retained for a 14-story extension adjacent to the western wing. The Penn Medicine Translational Research Center (TRC) expansion, completed in 2010, contains three floors that extend the clinical spaces of the original Perelman Center, along with seven stories of research laboratories. Construction has commenced on the third phase of the master plan, the South Pavilion.

The U-shaped facility houses the clinical departments and wraps around a transparent, 110-foot-high (33.5-meter) atrium, topped by a wood-clad volume that houses two stories of conference rooms and executive offices. Located at the termination of 34th Street, the eight-story glazed atrium provides the focal point for the building entrance and a prominent urban landmark. Sightlines throughout the atrium orient visitors, while public areas and some clinical spaces and offices are placed along the building perimeter to maximize natural lighting and outward views for visitors and staff. Exceptions are made for rooms that need privacy and carefully controlled light—examination rooms, labs, and operating rooms—which are placed in the center of the floor plates. Seven elevator and stair cores provide clearly defined circulation routes.

A 30 x 30-foot-square (9.15 x 9.15-meter) structural steel grid provides optimum space for current clinical requirements allowing for horizontal placement of departments to encourage interaction among physicians. At the same time, the grid offers flexibility to accommodate possible reconfiguration of departments. Currently, the eastern and western wings house clinical departments, while the lower levels provide services needed by all parts of the facility including radiology and Magnetic Resonance Imaging.

The hospital has a host of “green” strategies: a highly reflective roof to reduce heat island effect, electric car charging stations, bike parking, showers for bicyclists, and the use of local steel.

As the hospital expands, the master plan specifies that future construction be similarly arranged around the perimeter of the building, in order to preserve the prominence of the central atrium and to maintain the pedestrian scale of the streetscape.