Two PAYETTE Projects Win BSA Awards for Design Excellence

Judging has wrapped for the 2014 Boston Society of Architects (BSA) Honor Awards for Design Excellence. PAYETTE is pleased to announce both Environment Hall at Duke University and the Penn State University Hershey Medical Complex received awards. The BSA will announce the tier of the awards at the annual Gala in January 2015.

Environment Hall is an articulated transparent envelope, supported from a simple concrete frame; a building uniquely aware of its solar orientation and its position on a hinge point in the campus. The building’s exterior envelope shifts in relation to the structural concrete frame to address different site and environmental conditions. Along the north, the envelope disengages from the structure creating a taut glass plane facing the modern medical campus. Along the south, the envelope retreats into the structure, exposing each of the building’s floor levels, which overhang the facade and serve as primary shading elements. The long narrow bar building is nestled in among existing campus buildings giving virtually all program spaces access to natural light and views. A subtle bend in the building’s geometry mitigates multiple campus grids, signifies entry and is used to create landscape spaces that are at once cradled and expansive. The building’s structural grid and floor-to-floor heights align with the adjacent Levine Science Research Center, creating a dialogue between old and new across a protected orchard while preserving the flexibility of a future physical link between buildings. Entry occurs across an elevated pedestrian bridge which mitigates a sharp change in site topography and helps define the project as a walk-up, campus building.

At the Penn State Health Milton S. Hershey Medical Complex, the fundamental direction of the Master Plan was derived from the institutional goal to re-energize the institution’s brand while respecting its heritage. The client wanted to create a cohesive, unified precinct, while enabling each signature component (Cancer Institute and Children’s Hospital) to maintain their own identity. The fundamental configuration also needed to respect and refer to the iconic architecture of the original medical center building, especially the Crescent. These two drivers resulted in the creation of the Arc, a landscape-based framework that organized every component of the plan.

The design solution is rooted in the landscape and connections to nature. The sweep of the “Arc”—a unifying landform that defines the building geometry, approach, façades and gardens—organizes a series of addresses for the Cancer Institute and Children’s Hospital. The Cancer Institute is a unique collocation of researchers and clinicians around a social interaction hub that fulfills the project’s mission and fosters translational exchange and innovation to speed the discovery of a cure. The Children’s Hospital uses a richer palette of shapes, colors and materials to communicate the building’s unique identity as a place for children and families. Throughout both projects, views to courtyards and gardens serve to make exterior spaces year-round extensions of the interior environment. This furthers an institutional vision to create a warm and open care-giving environment with the best patient experience at its center.