Boston, MA – The interior design award under the catagory of healthcare was presented to Miller Dyer Spears (MDS) recently for their work on the Yawkey Center at Dana Faber Cancer Institute.
Located at the heart of the Longwood Medical Area for 64 years, Dana-Farber Cancer Institute is one of the world’s premier cancer institutions. The Yawkey Center for Cancer Care, its first new building in over 30 years, was built to be the new face of Dana-Farber and provide the next generation of cancer care. The building totals 13 stories and 275,000 square feet.
MDS served as Associate Architect for the project, with ZGF Architects as Architect of Record/Design Architect.
The Yawkey Center creates a comfortable, welcoming environment for patients and families throughout all areas of the building – clinics, infusion suites, reception and waiting, patient-family center, chapel, dining pavilion. The generous, nurturing design sets a new standard for cancer oncology facilities worldwide.
The Yawkey Center integrates patient care with cutting-edge oncology research through sit-down interaction nodes for clinicians and scientists, multi-floor bridges to the adjacent Smith Laboratories Building, and focal common space for the entire patient-staff community in the dining-lounge-conference complex.
Building the Yawkey Center reorganized the whole Dana-Farber campus – creating a new front door and public image on Brookline Ave.; centralizing reception, parking, patient intake, and support services; and interconnecting all buildings with legible access and easy flow.
MDS aimed to design optimal spaces for new modes of Dana-Farber patient-care operations, and expanded, consolidated services – which had to be planned years before the functional launch. This required continual dialogue with a full range of practitioners, incisive projective thinking and repeated updating, to imagine and create the best facility accommodations. The Centralized Pharmacy, which produces chemotherapy medications for every clinic throughout Dana-Farber, requires a scale of drug production unprecedented among Cancer Centers nationally. We evolved new modes of materials processing, product flow and layout, clean room protection, patient and inventory tracking, and campus-wide delivery using high-speed horizontal and selective vertical conveyor systems. Successful solutions were the result of close interaction between MDS architects and pharmacists, clinic managers and materials management specialists, and learning high-through-put procedures from other industries like manufacturing and fast food.
Myron Miller, RA, was principal-in-charge and Amy MacKrell, RA, LEED AP, Senior Associate was the project manager. for MDS. According to MDS, “Individual attention” is the MDS mantra. Each institution has its own mode of practice and program operations – in clinical procedures, patient accommodation, research protocols, work flow and equipment use, facility standards, etc. We listen carefully to understand fully, and work interactively with each clinical director, principal investigator and facility manager to optimally meet their needs and expectations.
“High-image design” and “pragmatic solutions” are not inconsistent. MDS provides practical, long-term design responses to meet all programmatic requirements, while we craft imaginative spaces with strong institutional branding, and insist upon top-quality build-out.
The project has achieved LEED Silver Certification to fully achieve a healthy building environment. An indoor healing garden and green roofs connect users to nature. Low-mercury light fixtures and equipment protect occupants and all facilities meet or exceed all indoor air quality requirements. Sunshades protect the large windows and daylight photo-sensors control shading mechanisms in selected spaces. Interior finishes are predominantly from local manufacturers and/or contain recycled materials, and all wood products are FSC-certified.
Notes on Sustainability:
More than 50% of the wood used is FSC Certified
All paints, sealants, finishes have No or Low VOC’s
Use of materials with a high recycled content – ceiling tile, wall board
Use of renewable materials – linoleum, recycled glass countertops
