We are excited to announce that the firm’s design for Kaiser Permanente Lutherville – Timonium Medical Center in Timonium, Maryland, received the Heal Award at the 2024 IIDA RMC BEST Awards, hosted by the IIDA Rocky Mountain Chapter in Denver, Colorado.
The BEST awards is a design excellence awards program that recognizes interior design projects going beyond a pretty picture and truly encompassing Brilliantly Executed Spaces and Thinking. The program recognizes that successful interior design requires a collaboration between many disciplines, consultant teams, project managers, vendors, contractors, and more, therefore, acknowledging all who contribute to the project success.
About the Project:
The primary planning goal for the project was to create a clear, simple, and efficient organizational diagram, with public spaces that enhance the member experience by maximizing daylight and views. A communicating stair between waiting areas promotes physical activity. On-stage and off-stage areas separate the patient circulation from staff, providing a quiet, calming experience. Engaging and reflecting the community through exterior and interior locally sourced, custom artwork is also a highly prioritized goal for our client. This effort helps to create a unique experience for people visiting or simply passing through the site. Local demographics and geographic features were considered when developing this program. Considering the large, vibrant art community in the city of Baltimore, the team proposed incorporating a large scale, exterior mural installation that engages visitors and staff from outside arrival points and from within the facility.
Achieving LEED Gold Certification at Lutherville-Timonium Medical Center was another goal established at the beginning of the project. Sustainable design features include a 40,000 sf photovoltaic array above the top floor of the garage which generates clean energy, vertical fins to mitigate the western solar exposure of the clinic waiting rooms, and a green roof which filters stormwater and provides a positive distraction for patients in the oncology center.
As healthcare delivery continues to rapidly evolve, there was a desire to employ a modular design concept. To ensure the building is flexible and can accommodate future layouts, especially within clinical modules, demountable wall partitions are used extensively in the clinical and treatment areas, posing novel challenges for the design team, such as an expedited design process and additional trade coordination. The design team was tasked with bridging the community identity and KP’s national brand, beginning with visitors’ arrival to the site. Kaiser Permanente’s brand is iconic, and a key to maintaining that experience is to provide a consistent feeling and familiarity at each of their facilities nationwide. The ultimate challenge was to create a holistically designed space that promotes healing and wellness and actively reflects the community in which it is located. The project became more than just a place to receive healthcare but more a destination that promotes outdoor activity, proper nutrition, and mental well-being. The campus is a symbol and tool for healthy living, encouraging all who interact with the space to thrive.
