1st Place, Wild Card
As part of a campus masterplan undertaken by University of Cincinnati Health (UC Health) Medical Center in 2017, several pinch points for the hospital were identified—one of which involved the hospital’s outdated and confusing main entry. With more than 600 visitors and patients through the lobby every hour, the area was inefficient and often bottlenecked. The issues identified included an outdated vehicle arrival, an improperly sloped drop-off zone that posed risk to wheelchair-bound pedestrians and an entry that felt invisible from the street.
From the interior, the lobby was difficult to navigate, crowded and often confusing. Additionally, the overall look and feel of the interior lobby needed refreshing to align with UC Health’s brand messaging about the power and hope in academic medicine. “Part of our challenge was to express UC Health’s branding of ‘Science as Texture’ architecturally in the space in ways that aid self-navigation; maintain privacy; and convey the hope, healing, and dignity embedded in medical research and care,” explains Aaron Anderson, GBBN principal and project lead.
A striking, light and bright exterior canopy helps make the entry clearly visible from the street. 
The new canopy provides generous coverage for multiple vehicles and provides views into the renovated lobby, which feels welcoming and navigable. 
A level parking pad helps protect wheelchair patients from rolling risks and is clearly visible at night. 
A clearly defined information desk helps cue people where to go. The ceiling fins, pop of red and wood accents on the information desk define this key destination. 
Light, bright and easily navigable, the new entry feels uplifting and hopeful. 
Take my spleen, please! Registration is a joy in this shiny happy space. 
The renovated waiting area features floor to ceiling windows and views to a landscaped courtyard. 
BEFORE: The set-back entry felt invisible and was hard to see from the street. PHOTO: GBBN 
BEFORE: The old canopy didn’t feel generous enough or convey the hope in academic medicine. PHOTO: GBBN 
BEFORE: The entry lobby was confusing to navigate and didn’t express UC’s brand promise of the hope found in academic medicine. PHOTO: GBBN 
BEFORE: The registration area was drab. PHOTO: GBBN 
Scope of the project, outside and inside. DRAWING: GBBN 
AFTER: UC Health Medical Center, Main Entrance Improvements DRAWING: GBBN 
BEFORE: UC Health Medical Center, Main Entrance Improvements DRAWING: GBBN
PHOTOS: Ryan Kurtz unless otherwise noted
In 2019, GBBN began the design process on 16,000 square feet of interior and lobby renovations, as well as a 4,500-square-foot entry canopy.
Circulation patterns were improved by moving the information desk closer to the entry, making clear the route patients must take to check-in and transition to the next part of the hospital. The brightly colored red wall (UC Health’s primary brand color) adds to the visual cues for wayfinding.
Daylighting was incorporated by the design team with double-height curtainwall windows at the first-floor waiting area, offering views of a landscaped courtyard. Daylight in the corridors encourages patient circulation through the hospital.
The bold new exterior canopy uses angled aluminum fins, applied at varied spacing and depths, to make the new patient entry more visible from the street. Using computational design, the canopy’s fin system intentionally minimizes custom parts to ease onsite installation. The canopy’s textures create visual interest as reflected light changes through the day and year. The scalloped fin pattern carries through to the interior in the ceiling above the information desk and other interior elements.
“One of the key things we need to remind ourselves is to maintain design flexibility at all times, especially at a hospital where renovations often expand from building to building to building,” Anderson says. “For this project, the entry had to remain the primary front door during construction. How do we meet all the details of codes and construction barriers while balancing design intent? It was a good lesson to our less experienced architects who hadn’t been through that process before.”
The job of coordinating the computational design elements between the design team and the fabricator was overseen by GBBN’s Director of Computational Design and Fabrication Troy Malmstrom. Malmstrom’s role is a bit unique to most architecture firms; he works with the design team, ?manufacturers, fabricators and builders to ensure design intent from inception to execution. In addition to ensuring design elements are constructed as intended, Malmstrom participates early in any value-engineering processes to ensure the best product for the client with the design team’s intent.
“We were able to visually express to our contractors that there are only seven different zones on the canopy through the use of advanced 3D modeling tools, like Rhino and Grasshopper. We were able to give the fabricators linear footage take-offs for cost estimating with maximum run lengths and ideally where we wanted breaks in the materials,” Malmstrom recalls. “We optimized the design and layout with the contractor to maintain the design goals and meet the fabricator in the middle on some items, knowing we had a budget to maintain.”
This method of design allowed the architects to react to a myriad of unknown field conditions in an efficient manner. “There are so many twists and turns when working with construction partners and consultant teams. If field conditions ?are discovered that impact the design, we can respond ?instantly and develop quick, effective solutions for coordination,” Anderson notes. “By involving our construction partners early in the design process, we often can create unconventional solutions that not only work, but also meet the client’s design intent and brand expression.”
Malmstrom adds: “What we’ve found is that when we get into a room with construction partners and explain the thought process and efforts, they start to understand that we’re coming at this with fabrication experience and meeting them in the middle. We’re not simply designing something for them to figure out how to solve and fabricate, but rather we are taking fabrication issues into consideration as part of the design. We quickly develop advocates in the construction partners that are engaged and want to provide input.”
A unique aspect of GBBN’s in-house fabrication shop is that it allows the design team to make full mockups of concepts to use in the design process. “The discussions with construction partners get a lot easier when you can hand them the actual thing you are trying to construct,” Anderson remarks.
“With our own fabrication shop and our ability to build the items we’re trying to create, we take the notion of architect as craftsman very seriously,” Malmstrom says.
The end result of this highly coordinated effort is a beautiful new entry for UC Health that solved many of the issues identified in the campus master plan. With the use of advanced design and construction techniques, UC Health now has a strong visual statement of its “Science as Texture” concept and a sense of identity that provides patients with clarity on wayfinding and reduces the amount of congestion in a heavily trafficked entry.
This project blew me away. I work on a lot of health care, and I know the issues health care is dealing with, in terms of costs, and this project is brave and absolutely beautiful.
Saul Jabbawy, regional director of design, principal, EwingCole
Retrofit Team
Architect: GBBN
Landscape Architect: REALM Collaborative
Civil Engineer: The Kleingers Group
Structural Engineer: THP
Lighting Designer: The Lighting Practice
MEP Engineer: Heapy
Graphics and Wayfinding: Kolar
Construction Manager: Danis
Materials
Curtainwall: YCW 750 OG from YKK AP
IGU: Guardian Glass
Rainscreen: Mid-Am
Stone Masonry: Indiana Limestone from Tex-a-Con Cut Stone
Terrazzo: Rosa Mosaic
Acoustic Ceiling Panels: TechZone from Armstrong World ?Industries
Rigid Thermofoil Panels: Soelberg
Custom Fin Ceiling: Cassady Woodworks, (937) 256-7948
Custom Railings: Avenue Fabricating, (513) 752-1911
Custom Wallcoverings: Inpro
