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By Nancy B. Solomon, AIA

Health and the health-care environment

Established in 1948, the Center for Discovery is a not-for-profit health-care agency serving children and adults with severe and multiple disabilities. It provides a holistic range of therapies and educational opportunities to this population on two adjacent residential campuses near the Catskill Mountains in upstate New York. About 220 children and adults live on-site, another 60 adults live in nearby community residences run by the center, and about 500 people from the greater community take advantage of its day programs and services.

 

Patrick H. Dollard Discovery Health Center, Harris, New York Photography: © David Allee

Yet until recently, the center lacked a centralized clinic that could address all primary medical needs. Basic services were scattered across its properties, and many routine diagnostic and treatment procedures could only be obtained off-site. Transporting disabled residents—many of whom are confined to wheelchairs—as far away as Manhattan was inconvenient for the staff and stressful for the patients.

So, in 2000, Executive Director Patrick H. Dollard engaged Guenther5 Architects of New York in the design of an on-site ambulatory clinic. He didn’t request a green building, but health-care architect Robin Guenther, AIA, who had been researching healthy materials for years and had recently been exploring geothermal heating systems, inquired if the center would consider alternative energy. The existing buildings ran off oil, but, says Guenther, “it was a year when everyone thought that oil prices were going to skyrocket.” Needless to say, the client was intrigued. “So we started with energy,” explains Guenther.

Incrementally, the design team began raising other environmental goals—from nontoxic materials to water-efficiency. It wasn’t long before the executive director recognized that sustainable design was consistent with the organization’s core values. The center had long believed that the environment contributed to the health of its patients, explains Guenther, but “the administrators had never really put it all together until the design of this building.” With this new realization, the executive director decided that the proposed clinic should register with LEED, thus becoming the first health-care project ever to do so.