Wellness centers, health-care facilities, medical centers, clinics, hospitals and assisted-living complexes—facilities that treat the sick and aid the aging—are getting healthier themselves. Owners are on a quest to put their buildings on energy diets and provide better environments for patients, residents, visitors and staff.
“It is essential that we build green as part of our overall vision to heal humanity through science and compassion,” says Jill Ann Sullivan, vice president of strategic space planning and general services for Lucile Packard Children’s Hospital Stanford, Palo Alto, Calif., which will complete, next year, a 521,000-sq-ft expansion of its 300,000-sq-ft existing hospital. “Incorporating nature into the design also improves the healing process, which is why we have three and a half acres of gardens in the expansion,” as well as outdoor “overlooks” that give patients and staff easy access to fresh air and sunlight, Sullivan adds.