by Heather Livingston

As a necessity, architects routinely form partnerships with other architects or firms in the interest of successful project delivery. Rarely, however, does the project and partnership last 20 years. Even more rarely do the partners still enjoy working together, but such is the case with the architects of the Jersey City Medical Center’s (JCMC) Wilzig Hospital: Arthur Blume, AIA, principal, RBSD; and Ed Jakmauh, AIA, principal, Ballinger.

20 years in the making
Dedicated in October 1936 by President Franklin Delano Roosevelt, the Jersey City Medical Center’s previous Art Deco facility had grown hopelessly obsolete. Although the hospital’s board did ask entrants in the competition to consider ways to revitalize the historic campus, they soon agreed that building a new hospital from the ground up was the most affordable and practical way to proceed. Because of the considerable size of the project—366,000 square feet at a cost of $220 million—the client insisted that the designers work in teams, thereby reducing liability and increasing manpower. Thus a joint venture between the two firms was fashioned. Nearly 20 years after the design competition, the JCMC’s new Wilzig Hospital opened in May of 2004.

Jersey City, the fastest growing and soon-to-be the largest city in New Jersey, is in the midst of a transformation from industrial, run-down, struggling suburb into a high-tech, corporate, and residential boomtown. Sited on a former brownsfield that was essentially a junkyard of falling-down warehouses, the new JCMC is a modern teaching hospital and an anchor for renewal in Jersey City that has spurred local development that includes two schools and a hotel. Looking across the Hudson to Lower Manhattan, the hospital offers extraordinary views of the Statue of Liberty and Ellis Island. “We’ve heard reports that the views are better than you’ll find in any hotel,” notes Jakmauh.

Jakmauh’s firm, Ballinger, is a member of the Center for Health Design’s Pebble Project, which strives to improve the quality and delivery of health care through design. According to the Pebble Project’s Web site, they hope to create ripples of change throughout the health-care community “[b]y providing examples of health-care organizations whose facility design has made a difference in the quality of care—as well as their financial performance.” Among the quality-of-care amenities that the architects fought for were larger windows. “Seemingly little things like private rooms and large windows with a view can dramatically enhance patient recovery,” says Jakmauh.

Incorporating efficiencies
One of the key differences between the original JCMC and the new Wilzig Hospital is the incorporation of modern efficiencies. “A major issue in hospitals is the nursing units and the number of beds within. The nursing units need to be functionally and staffing-wise efficient to take care of patients,” states Blume. “The existing hospital had anywhere from 10-22 beds in a nursing unit. Our standard was 38 beds in the new hospital, so there’s an increased efficiency there.

“There’s also efficiency between the related departments. We have separate elevator cores—one for passenger and staff, one for supplies and patients on stretchers, and another set of elevators that go directly from the emergency room to the critical care areas of surgery, intensive care units, labor and delivery, and psychiatric nursing,” Blume continues. “We were capable of having total flexibility in maximizing efficiencies. For instance, maternal and child health is located all on one floor. In the old hospital, it was on two or three different floors in two or three different buildings. On some levels there wasn’t a connection from one wing to the other because they had different floor to floor heights.”

Blume further explains that there is a major efficiency in the new hospital’s labor and delivery—LDR—rooms, maternity nursing, neonatal intensive care, and full-term nursery and maternity beds all on one level so it’s a horizontal connection with a minimum amount of travel distance for all of the maternal and child health departments. The new hospital also provides similar efficiency in the cardiac and psychiatric service facilities, as well as the inclusion of a modern mechanical plant on-site.

A complementary relationship
According to Jakmauh, the relationship between RBSD and Ballinger was very complementary from Day One; “During the three-day on-site charrette, Ballinger focused on key site-planning issues, such as multiple accesses. RBSD brought in a nurse and focused on internal operations. It was like the left hand complementing the right hand,” he says. Indeed, Blume and Jakmauh have even been described as “Oscar and Felix.” Blume, the pragmatic New Yorker, is straightforward and down-to-earth. Jakmauh, the erudite Philadelphian, favors the bigger picture. As with The Odd Couple, their common interest brought them together, but their differences are what made their partnership work.

How have they managed to keep faith and interest in a project that took so long to break ground (nearly 15 years), let alone complete? Their responses reinforced the Oscar and Felix analogy: Blume replied that it’s not all that unusual for a health-care project to take so long because of the necessary approvals required from the Department of Health and the difficulty in securing financing. Jakmauh’s response focused on the big picture aspect of the opportunity to create a new hospital from the ground up—a rarity east of the Mississippi as most hospitals are renovated and expanded.

Keeping interest in a long-term project is no small matter, but keeping technology current is critical in a rapidly evolving field like health care. The architects worked with the hospital staff to stay abreast of innovations and at the forefront of technology. Dr. Jonathan Metsch, JCMC president and CEO, took the team on tours of area hospitals, noting technologies and features to be incorporated. Together, the architects and staff worked out key issues such as critical care, adjacencies, and effective work areas. Blume noted that, “The design continued to be modified, including the program of what [was] constructed, the actual design of it, and the technology that was implemented. We were probably one year behind in some technologies, but the rooms are pretty flexible. The hospital can accept the latest equipment when they are in the position to purchase it.”

Although the architects currently aren’t involved in other projects together, they still maintain the joint-venture partnership and are seeking an opportunity to continue their work. “With our complementary backgrounds, it just made a tremendous amount of sense for us to work together,” says Jakmauh. Echoing that sentiment, Blume notes, “Because we packaged the architecture and engineering so successfully for the Jersey City Medical Center, we feel that we would bring something beneficial to another client.” Without a doubt, for the JCMC this team was right on: over the years, RBSD and Ballinger were re-interviewed three or four times as the hospital board periodically changed leadership. Each time, the board concluded that they had the right team for the job all along.

Copyright 2005 The American Institute of Architects. All rights reserved. Home Page