By Healthcare Facilities Today

At Martha Jefferson Hospital, the beauty of the surrounding Blue Ridge Mountains provides the perfect, nature-made view for those entering the lobby of this Charlottesville, Va., facility – a replacement for the original, 100-year-old building. As showcased in the June issue of Health Facilities Management, Milwaukee architects Kahler Slater undertook the design of this project, which won nods as the Most Beautiful Hospital in the United States from healthcare staffing agency Soliant Health.

According to the Health Facilities Management article, hospital officials knew the old building could not adequately provide the services or handle the capacity required for a growing and aging surrounding population. They wanted a facility that could achieve these goals and also project a contemporary, high-tech image that rivaled that of the city’s large, academic medical research center at the University of Virginia. 

The Kahler Slater design team faced a big challenge on the road to completing such a facility – the surrounding mountains. As the article points out, an original master plan required that the site be leveled. Designers, however, decided to work with the natural environment and instead built the facility into the mountain, using surveyors to determine where major rock was located on the site. The end result wound up being a “creative use of topography.”

It also expanded the original, century-old building’s footprint, making patient areas 30 percent larger and 20 percent more efficient.  These rooms were designed through collaboration of staff, patients and community members. All rooms enjoy scenic views as do family lounge areas in each corridor.

Other specialty services incorporated into this new facility include a cancer center with radiation and medical oncology services and a unique Surgical Interventional Procedural Center (SIPC), which cohorts with the hospitals main technology programs and share similar engineering services.

Read the article.