Carle Foundation Hospital has begun construction on its nine-story, 375,350 square-foot patient care tower, which will house the Carle Heart and Vascular Institute.

The $220 million facility will include space for advanced technology, improved facilities for direct patient care, and most importantly, a modern, comfortable environment for patients and their families. The tower will replace beds currently located in buildings constructed in the 1960s and 1970s.

“With advancing technology and changing patient needs, we must be committed to improvements for patients today and for those we will serve in the future,” ...[more]

The Meditation Room creates an island of repose, a compelling counterpoint to the powerful medicine practiced at the University of Michigan’s Cardiovascular Center. The design creates a piece of architecture and art that gives form to the desire of the Center’s in-house ministry for a space to nourish the human spirit that would be active, meditative, and non-denominational. Narrow niches in the limestone wall are backlit using fiber-optics to give the impression of filtered daylight. A writing desk nearby holds paper and pencil so that visitors can write down their thoughts, prayers, and notes ...[more]

The Cardiovascular Center at the University of Michigan is still making news nine months after its June 2007 opening.

The programming and space planning of the 420,000 sf Center, located on the University of Michigan’s Ann Arbor campus, is highlighted in “Extreme Makeover” in the March 2008 issue of Health Facilities Management magazine, while its construction and structural engineering at the the subject of a feature piece (“Campus Core”) in the March 2008 issue of Modern Steel Construction.

Shepley Bulfinch designed the project in association with Harley Ellis Devereaux.

Senior healthcare interior designer Anne Garrity was named one of “Twenty Making a Difference” in the December issue of Healthcare Design magazine.

This is Healthcare Design’s second annual feature, which provides peer recognition for those who are advancing the design of healthcare facilities.

Anne brings a unique understanding of the importance of creating healthcare interiors that break down institutional imagery. Her most recent work includes the new Cardiovascular Center at the University of Michigan. A podcast is being developed to narrate the hospital’s art collection for visitors and patients.

With over 25 years of experience, she has designed interiors for a wide range of healthcare clients including Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center, ...[more]

Architectural materials reinforce the emotional perception of the building in space. An embracing curve of curtainwall, glowing in the heart of the healthcare campus, holds the visitor and public waiting spaces in tight connection to the healing gardens inside and out.

A distinctive brick and punched window composition expresses the rectangular form of the utilitarian spaces behind the curving wall. The building meets the ground plane supported strongly with precast concrete panels with ashlar pattern.

Elise Woodward, AIA, LEED AP

View project

ANN ARBOR, MI – The University of Michigan held opening ceremonies for its new 420,000 s.f., $215 million Cardiovascular Center (CVC), a centerpiece of the University of Michigan (U-M) Health System campus. The CVC receives its first patients on June 11.

The CVC provides one-stop access to most of the University’s adult heart and vascular care, and allow U-M specialists from different disciplines to work together as never before.

The Center was designed with two guiding principles: creating an inclusive learning and healing environment for everyone from doctors and patients to visitors; and creating connections through medicine, art, gardens and the natural world.

One of its most striking features is a cylindrical, ...[more]