Design Ranking: 3
Technical Ranking: 4 (tie)
Final Ranking: 3

The NIH competition represents Kohn Pedersen Fox's first foray into laboratories. As a result, the New York firm teamed up with Hansen Lind Meyer, a firm experienced in research facilities. Their scheme was in many ways the most radical of the six, inspiring the strongest reactions both for and against it.

A quartet of large radial patient-care units pushes forth assertively into the landscape from a curving spine that is connected on the south to two lab blocks, each rotated 30 degrees from Building 10's east-west axis. The strong, figure plan "leapt off the boards," recalls Project Manager Walter Armstrong.

The selection panel praised the natural elements--daylight, vegetation, and water--introduced to the complex, and appreciated the way Principal William Pedersen sketched his ideas during his presentation. But KPF's inexperience with labs and healthcare design was evident in the rigid geometries of patient-care modules and the impractical configuration of nursing stations.

Moreover, the panel was concerned that splitting up the facility into multiple bays would raise the cost of construction above that of a more unified complex. The scientists felt that housing the clinical facility in several such modules might isolate researchers from one another, contrary to the idea of creating a single scientific community within the new complex.

Typical Floor Plan

Design Elements

Within the patient blocks, 10 flexible patient-care units hold 35 beds each, while nursing stations serve 'Modular 5- to 10-bed clusters. Top floors of each patient wing contain solariums and outdoor terraces, and pedestrian bridges on the eastern and western ends connect to the complex.

The selection panel liked how the architects proposed to wrap the existing glass-clad Ambulatory Care Research Facility in brick, with a new core of elevators and lobby. The new glass pediment crowning the atrium was deemed ungainly, but during the interview, ZGF noted that it could be replaced by a drum, barrel vault, or cone.