INTEG Spring 2011
Facilities Capture Cutting Edge Concepts
As with anything in life, one can approach a challenge and achieve basic success or embrace an opportunity and create something that uses the latest design concepts to create spaces that not only function incredibly well, but are special spaces for one to experience.
Such is the case with Our Lady of Lourdes Regional Medical Center (OLOL) in Lafayette, Louisiana. This project opens its doors to their community in June 2011, and is a very special hospital.
Through an excellent collaboration between the owner’s planning team, their leadership team and TEG’s project design and delivery team, OLOL incorporates cutting-edge design elements that far exceed anything considered, basic design.
TEG has spent nearly three years preparing research, developing facility master plans, integrating evidence-based design elements (EBD), spending thousands of staff hours, producing nearly 1,000 sheets of construction documents and delivering one of this country’s most efficient and productive hospitals.
There are literally hundreds of design details throughout the nearly 400,000 square feet in this acute care hospital and an adjoining 100,000 square foot medical office building that are based on EBD research and implementation. Five very evident EBD elements are:
•Site Amenities that provide Psychological Relief to Patients and Visitors.
•Use of Colors and Interior Texture Selections that are peaceful and provide comfort.
•Lighting Strategies that allow orientation and visual access to the exterior via large windows, skylights, courtyards, etc.
•Clinical Procedural Platform that provides excellent flexibility for staff to address the varying levels of patient volumes within minutes, increasing efficiency and elevating the quality of care.
•Green Roofs and Exterior Terraces that allow access to exterior spaces and ease the stress associated with the challenges of healthcare.
In this edition, TEG has included a few preliminary construction photos. Watch our next edition for the post-construction photographs that will illustrate more fully the benefits of evidence-based design and how incorporating even very simple elements can create very special spaces to be enjoyed for decades to come.
As our world continues to experience major events from civil unrest to earthquakes and tsunamis, it is a very good feeling to know that many wonderful things continue to happen in many parts of our world. Using simple concepts to make every day better for those we touch is only a small part of the responsibility we have to each other.
All the best,
R. Wayne Estopinal, AIA, ACHA, LEED AP
President – TEG
