University of Kansas Hospital Cancer Center Takes a Personal Design Approach

by Russell Boniface
Associate Editor

How do you . . . take a non-traditional approach to clinical design that gives patients dignity and comfort?

Summary: The University of Kansas Hospital in Kansas City, Kans., has opened its new $25-million outpatient cancer center, designed by RTKL Associates Inc. (which since has merged with ARCADIS). The three-story, 138,000-square-foot center adaptively reuses a 1950s-era office building. To meet the overall goal of making patients, their families, and visitors as comfortable as possible, the architects provided a personal, soothing environment, replete with warm earth tones, large windows, private treatment areas with comfortable high-end lounges and changing rooms, light wood finishes, and wall art. Wayfinding is enhanced by siting the center away from the main hospital campus for easy access to the drop-off area. Also to aid in wayfinding, the building itself has a wide, three-level stacked concourse.

The University of Kansas Hospital’s Cancer Center and Medical Pavilion provides treatment services from early cancer detection through survivorship. To make more room for these treatment services to accommodate increased growth in the program, the University of Kansas Hospital chose to relocate the cancer center to an expanded space on its campus.

Incorporating increased wayfinding, earth tones
The 1950s-era, precast concrete office building had recently served as the national headquarters for Sprint. To convert it to a cancer center, the design team eviscerated the three-story, precast building, leaving only the structure and skin; replaced the mechanical systems; and changed in a new elevator core. “The scale of the existing building gave the new cancer center a human, pedestrian scale,” says Patrick McCurdy, AIA, principal at RTKL Associates. “The first floor is somewhat recessed into the sloped ground on a heavily landscaped site. The approach from the street to the public drop-off is a nice approach, plus locating the facility from the main campus provides more direct access to the door entrance. There’s no more walking from a garage, across a bridge, and through the hospital. Circulation and wayfinding has been greatly improved.”

McCurdy says that the site lends itself to bringing a large amount of natural light into the building. He also felt it was important to maintain the earth-tone colors of the original building for the new cancer center. “We wanted to keep that spa feel, both for the interior and exterior, and have them both relate.”

The interior of the three-level cancer center blends muted earth tones, natural and indirect light, art, and wide concourses to make for a soft, pedestrian-friendly facility. “We tried to promote through the design a soothing, healing environment away from the traditional clinical feel.” McCurdy says. “There is a main concourse, similar to a mall setting, with places to be seated and artwork hanging on the walls. A two-story volume space in the main entrance has an art wall that resembles flowing water and blowing sand to create a timeless feeling. We stacked the concourses, and at the end of each one is a bright area of entrances.”

For wayfinding, McCurdy points out, one goes from the concourse directly into a waiting room of one of the clinics. “There’s no ‘down the hall, turn to the right,’” he explains. In addition, areas along the wide concourses are broken down into different zones, where patients can be seated, look at artwork, and relax.

Treatment areas give patients comfort, control
Making treatment areas, lounges, and even changing rooms as comfortable as possible for patients was paramount to McCurdy. “The level and detail of the design addresses dignity and personalization within a total composition.” An example, he describes, is the changing rooms in the radiology areas, with backlit mirrors, indirect lighting, upgraded wall fabric, and an actual door as opposed to a curtain. “The changing rooms resemble what you see at a high-end clothing store, not a typical hospital,” he says.

The architect placed the treatment areas on the building’s “treetop level,” so called because patients look out the large windows to the treetops beyond. Treatment bays conceal medical equipment into the casework for a non-clinical appearance, with countertops and faucets that look residential. The treatment areas incorporate translucent, custom-made dividers so natural light can flows through the space. “We wanted to get away from the chair-by-chair, cubicle curtain or walls,” says McCurdy. “Now, even the treatment bays in from the window still get light through the ceiling space above and through the translucent dividers”

The combination of warm, incandescent lighting with natural light was also critical, McCurdy states. “The entire facility has warm lighting, so when patients look in the mirror, their coloration is not getting flushed out. They are already pallid because their bodies are going through this difficult time. We wanted the light level to give them color in their skin so that they look healthy when they look in the mirror.”

Another key element in the design composition was allowing patients to control the comforts in the treatment areas. “They are not in control of their bodies right now. In the treatment areas they can control the lighting in their space, the recliner, DVDs connected to a flat screen panel, and speaker volumes. We do anything we can to give them complete control of their environment,” McCurdy says.

Upscale lounges lets patients, family relax
The design includes a family-patient lounge in the treatment bays. “Patients can take their IV poles, leave the treatment bay, and go to a corner where all the glass views directly out. There is a TV and upscale break area where they can get coffee and ice. Patients can sit down with family to get away. Or the family member can get away,” McCurdy says. The design also provides a visitor-family lounge for the entire facility, located in the clinical area. “It’s what we call an airline members’ club. It has higher-end fabric on the chairs and wall coverings, granite countertops, upper-scale cabinetry. We cut openings through the existing pre-cast concrete to allow views out to the garden. A family member can be there over four hours, so here they can get away, get on to the computer, grab a snack, and sit down in a club chair … just to escape for a little while.”

McCurdy notes that the facility resembles more of a boutique hotel rather than a medical facility. “We’ve heard a lot of feedback already from staff, visitors, and patients who are saying it does not feel like a hospital.”