The CARITAS Project, its Advisory Board, and its award judges and partners, have announced the award recipients in the third annual Generative Space Award.
One Award is being given to the Arlington Free Clinic, in Arlington, Virginia, designed by Perkins + Will. The judges said: “This project shows what can be achieved with a deep understanding of the needs of its users. The Arlington Free Clinic (AFC) is a private, non-profit, community-based organisation providing medical care at no charge to low-income, uninsured persons through volunteers and donations. The 8,600 ft2 facility accommodates three primary functions: delivering patient care, organising 500 volunteers, and fundraising.”
A second Award will go to the Ann & Robert H. Lurie Children’s Hospital of Chicago, designed by ZGF Architects / Solomon Cordwell Buenz / Anderson Mikos Architects. The judges said of the hospital: “A stunning piece of civic design, fully exploiting the demands of a city centre location. Inventive, child-centered, and evidence-based, this should set a benchmark for children’s hospitals.”
The new Lurie Children’s is located on a 1.8 acre site at the Northwestern University Medical School Campus, just north of Chicago’s downtown business centre. The new building is connected by bridges to the Prentice Women’s Hospital to facilitate the integration of inpatient care, diagnostic and treatment space, clinical support, and logistical, medical office, and clinical operations.
The Generative Space Award was introduced to: ‘build a new knowledge base about generative space and the benefits of its application’; ‘identify and give recognition to exemplary projects that provide community-wide learning opportunities to systemically and sustainably improve health and healthcare through the design of the environment’; ‘raise awareness of this new method of practice and the benefits that it affords’, and ‘bring generative space design into mainstream professional practice as a new paradigm’.
Details of the third Annual Generative Space Award projects will be posted online by 1 September. The ‘Call for Entries’ for the fourth Annual Generative Space Award will be available online by 1 October 2012, with an entry deadline of 15 June 2013. For additional information, visit: www.aplacetoflourish.net.
The CARITAS Project is ‘a global enterprise committed to the creation of transformational environments that enhance human health’, and ‘operates as a loosely organised networking community that engages in defined projects. The Project was established by ‘architect and visionary’, Wayne Ruga as ‘the next phase’ in his ‘personal quest’ to improve human health.
During the first three decades of this ‘quest’, he says his focus was on the built environment ‘as the means to advance the delivery of healthcare, and, consequently, human health’. He has subsequently turned his attention to ‘culture – the active expression of values that characterise a group or organisation’ – in the belief that ‘helping organisations develop more sensitive and supportive cultures is the means to better both the social, and the built environment, thus improving health’.