Cooper University Hospital is a leading academic health system and operates one of the busiest level-1 trauma centers in its region. When Cooper engaged Array to design its Acute Stroke and Neuro Interventional Suite located within their emergency department, the first suite of its kind in the US, our team eagerly seized the opportunity. The design of the suite features state-of-the-art technology, medical equipment, and infrastructure to reduce time to table for critical stroke patients. Let’s review the meticulous planning and design process that underpins the AHA/ASA-certified comprehensiv ..read more

Contributors to this article include Laura Jensen and David Artman, Principals at Array.  Many healthcare projects face extreme budget fatigue with the economic challenges created by rising inflation and unpredictability in material costs. The budget strain that many clients are experiencing is resulting in lengthy schedule delays due to capital shortages or value engineering considerations at design milestones that include deep program cuts, and in some cases, clients are forced to stop projects all together. The biggest concern noted of Architectural Firms moving into the second q ..read more

Co-authored by Marc Mendoza, a Lead Designer at Array When you exit the US-58 Midtown tunnel by car in Norfolk, VA, there it is: the gleaming, angular, striking exterior of Children’s Hospital of the King’s Daughters’ (CHKD) new 14-Story Pediatric Mental Health Tower. The Array-designed facility was purpose built to help CHKD counter unsettling trends affecting our country. One in five children has a diagnosable mental health condition, and early intervention can save lives. In response, CHKD created their Lighting the Way campaign to increase mental healthcare availability, and this pavilion ..read more

Doylestown Hospital’s Outpatient Pavilion, developed in partnership with Anchor Health Properties, creates a one-stop experience for outpatient care in the community. A finalist for HREI’s Best New Medical Office Building Award, the facility represents a continuation of Array’s work on the campus. The Array team previously designed their first outpatient pavilion housing radiation oncology and infusion, cardiology, GI and other physician practice space ..read more

Co-authored by Morgan Young. In 2019, the Lebanon, PA Veterans Affairs (VA) Medical Center tapped Miller Remick and Array Architects to design and construct a Community Living Center (CLC) that follows the VA standard small house model for their campus. Little did the team know that the pandemic was about to fundamentally change how age-in-place environments are designed. In this article, we’ll review strategies to adapt existing designs to meet new guidelines by exploring how the design team addressed MEP and operational challenges posed by the pandemic.     ..read more

Recent work at Array prompted our design team to compile crucial guidance for designing facilities in hurricane zones. For example, a health facility located on a tropical island requires considerations of building movement, sustainability, and resiliency. Keeping these factors at the forefront of the design process helps ensure safety, optimal use of capital dollars and long-term operation of the site. In this blog, we’ll offer an inside look at the results of our design meetings and offer guidelines you can apply to your next project with extreme weather of this type ..read more

An emerging best practice for behavioral health environments is to design spaces that minimize or eliminate areas where patients are secluded or restrained. The aim is to develop an environment designed to de-escalate,  avoiding situations where medical staff need to physically intervene and restrain patients, which can be a traumatic act. Behavioral health environments often include seclusion rooms – either by design or in keeping with FGI code – to prevent patients from harming themselves or others. These rooms, which are sometimes padded, provide space for patients to de-escalate and ..read more

As a healthcare architect, I get to see every day how powerful specialty care can be for the patients being treated in highly specialized hospitals. It is not every day that we are able to design space within a community hospital that allows patients to receive specialty care closer to home ..read more

Welcome to our Clinician-Centered Design blog series, where we showcase guidance and design strategies to mitigate staff burnout, promote well-being and quantify the impact design solutions. Start from the beginning of this series here.  |  This blog was co-authored by Lisa Lipschutz and Madeline Hill, a former interior designer at Array. The interactions at the start of a physician office visit set the stage for both patient and clinician experience. Front desk staff are the first encounter for a patient, yet they experience a higher turnover rate than any other position. This is a ..read more

Authors Diana Louden and Lauren Michaels contributed to this piece. Imagine yourself as a nurse, nine hours into your 12-hour ICU shift. After watching your favorite patient take an unexpected turn for the worse, you manage to break away for just a minute to sit. Utter exhaustion overtakes you. Your feet hurt from standing, your back aches from helping weak patients move in their beds. The thin layer of sweat that began seven hours ago has intensified, and you realize you are drenched. And you have three hours left. Suddenly, you notice someone is talking to you. “Excuse me! I said my mother ..read more