NMH Emergency Medicine

• Location Chicago, Illinois
• Design 2002
• Construction 2003
• Client Northwestern Memorial Hospital

The new Emergency Medicine Department is located within an old building that has been randomly altered throughout the years. Due to its origins as a warehouse the building presented an off-center elevator core, small structural spans and geometric proportions not adept for office use. Therefore the existing facilities had poor circulation and a non existent perception of the outside.

The main challenge became to improve on the circulation patterns and to make sure that as many users as possible could experience daylight, weather changes and the passing of the different seasons. To resolve these issues an interior street was created. Being wide enough to allow for dual circulatory traffic and the distribution of workstations for support purposes, this interior street allows for light to filter into the space at each end. All offices and key communal spaces are thus organized along this space creating an efficient circulation space and promoting employee interaction. As part of this project the main entry and lobby of the building were designed to accommodate the identity of the new tenants and to incorporate the Northwestern Memorial Hospital corporate material palette.