Holistic Sustainability, Biophilic Design and Human Health

Eskenazi Health is one of the world’s largest LEED Gold healthcare campuses. The environmentally responsible certification spans four different building types: healthcare, office, restaurant and utility plants.

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Beyond the LEED checklist, Eskenazi Health challenged HOK to create a biophilic design that promotes both human health and holistic sustainability. The team sought to balance the complex technology of modern medicine with the body’s inherent need for an environment that supports rest, reduces stress and restores health from within. In addition to its short-term benefits related to stress reduction and healing, biophilia can provide long-term health benefits by giving people repeated and prolonged contact with nature.

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The Eskenazi Health Sky Farm, a 5,000-sq.-ft. rooftop fruit and vegetable garden above the clinical building, promotes healthy eating habits and connects patients and staff with nature. The garden yields about 3,000 pounds of produce per year and even has a bee hive with 500 bees to increase crop production. The Sky Farm is open to the public and hosts year-round classes on healthy eating. Seating areas offer visitors a quiet space to enjoy the outside. Produce grown in the garden is served in the hospital and in a campus restaurant.

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An extensive public art program helps to create year-round metaphoric, sensory and spatial connections to nature. These types of connections mitigate stress and support health and well-being.

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The massive art piece “May/September” by artist Rob Ley dominates the southern edge of the site, encompassing one side of a seven-story parking garage. Made up of nearly 7,000 angled, colored metal panels, the art installation appears to shift and change as visitors move past.

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Designers chose Indiana limestone, native wildflowers and deciduous trees for the campus landscape. This locally inspired outdoor environment also influenced the interior design elements and public art program.

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Light wells and interior courtyards in the patient tower and ambulatory care center bring healing natural light into the heart of the buildings.

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A rainwater harvesting system supplies 100 percent of the landscape’s irrigation needs. Inside the buildings, low-flow fixtures reduce potable water use by 40 percent.

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Engineering the dramatic cantilevers

Rather than create a single imposing facility, the design team assembled hospital elements into distinct programs housed in a series of linked buildings and spaces. The planes and frames of the patient tower’s colored glass curtain wall lend it a sculptural appearance.

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One of the structural design challenges was how to incorporate a nine-story, 60-foot-high cantilever on the bed tower. The original architectural vision was for a basic cantilever stair system. Late in the design process, this grew to include a stair and a conference room—a large area of the building. The team determined that the best solution was to add large trusses one-story deep in the fourth-floor mechanical space. To allow facade construction to advance before the steel erection above the trusses was complete, HOK’s engineering team worked closely with the contractor on deflection control.

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Using lighting to enhance the healthcare experience

HOK’s lighting design team approached this project with a goal of using the exterior and interior lighting to inspire feelings of comfort and calm. A “day in the life” exercise helped the team understand the optimum day and evening lighting levels for patients. The glass facades allow for a profusion of natural light. Interior lighting levels support the key activities in the lobby, waiting rooms and patient rooms.

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