Wellogy partnered with the Adena Corporation to bring new life to the former Lazarus department store in the Richland Mall. The major renovation from retail to healthcare provides a new maternity unit for the growing Avita Ontario Health System in the Mansfield, Ohio area.
Many companies are adopting a hybrid work model for the future. This change in work environments has and will continue to influence the way people use their homes. Our homes are not only places where we live but also office spaces, places to exercise, and places to play. Including the following healthy design ideas in your home can improve your overall well-being, both mentally and physically.
Incorporating these elements into your homes is a great start to bring a sense of wellness into the places we live. All of these elements can be designed into new homes and can also be added to existing homes. Take some time to consider how you can start implementing these ideas to improve your quality of life!
Contact Danielle King, IIDA, NCIDQ, LEED GA @dking@wellogydesign.com to share your products or insights on healthier design materials.
by Jennifer M. Bobbitt
The guiding principle of our work is to “create places of well-being to enrich people’s lives.” Driven by this ideal, our trademarked concept, Healthy Urbanism™, is integrating intentionally designed elements that help communities thrive and prosper. We promote the healthy outcomes of communities by working with partners engaged in designing a better way to live.
Wellogy (formerly Davis Wince, Ltd.) has been working with healthy home concepts for several years. We’ve partnered with home builders, manufacturers of home materials, and town planners to design a template for incorporating wellness into the home. Senior planners, designers, and seasoned veterans in their fields with knowledge and experience have all contributed to our mission to design healthier homes in pursuit of overall improved health and wellness. The year of COVID shook up the game and made us dig deeper for solutions and possibilities as we move into a new world with more remote working, learning, and enhanced safety protocols. The need for an efficient, safe, and “well” home has never been more apparent. We have broadened our thinking and our search for solutions by tapping into additional resources and innovations.
The 2020 pause in design and construction allowed us to engage with new voices and explore ways to contribute beyond immediate project needs. We took two varied approaches to explore healthy homes opportunities further, and both yielded interesting, marketable results. The top three ideas that rose to the surface in our discovery and exploration are:
We reached these conclusions through two concentrated efforts. The first approach was an internal design charrette, including our entire Wellogy team. The project addressed the need to incorporate the elements of Healthy Urbanism™ into a small town in Central Florida. The goal was to improve the services in the area so residents could have everything they needed within a 15- minute walking distance of their home, thus creating Healthy Urbanism™. The community was also in need of housing that would serve the current population and support new growth.
Our firm divided into teams and met regularly for six weeks as we researched, designed, and modified our concepts. We analyzed trends and challenges and brainstormed the ideal collection of homes for this area based on market needs. The final designs included:
We focused on creating pocket neighborhoods and providing options like age-in-place and ADU’s to co-locate support. The designs are flexible, inviting, and incorporated into the community, allowing residents to easily engage with needs, services, and entertainment and not rely heavily on transportation.
The second approach involved engaging with 25 University of Cincinnati Visual Innovation Studio (VIS) students. Working with the University of Cincinnati and the VIS class led by Associate Professor Aaron Bradley, we created a project overview for the design exercise. The VIS project challenged the group of students to explore two primary questions. First, how can healthy home environments improve their inhabitants’ social, health, and economic, mental well-being? And second, how does the design of a healthy home fit into and enhance the Healthy Urbanism™ formula? We provided architects and planners a team to support the students by responding to their questions and providing additional information.
According to Bradley, “This is a new program we created in response to COVID and the fact that students wouldn’t be able to have traditional co-op experiences, and many companies had innovation challenges that would benefit from students’ perspectives.” Bradley is an Associate Professor of Creative, Culture, and Social Impact Initiatives in UC’s Division of Experience-Based Learning and Career Education.
The 25 students presented the final presentation deck via a Zoom meeting to display their findings to Wellogy associates. Teams were encouraged to incorporate digital prototypes, images of physical prototypes, data visualizations, and interactive elements when possible and relevant (3D/SLA printed models, mockups, etc.). Compiling research from articles, interviews, and existing research data, they determined four key features of a Healthy Home- adaptable space, water quality/ access, maximized lighting, and air environment.
The students created consumer profiles and explored the option of designing spaces where people could age in place. “Something that I found very intriguing was the thought of aging with the home. I have moved around a lot so thinking about living somewhere long term never has crossed my mind. I do think it is important to think about though and how the home can adapt with the homeowner to be accessible/user friendly,” according to Chloe Pi, University of Cincinnati Industrial Design student, Class of 2024.
According to Gary Gray, Wellogy architect, and Healthy Homes innovator, the students were thoughtful and thorough in their designs. They even took the extra step to code graphics to provide a visual aide showing before to after images of age in place transformation for critical rooms in a home. Gray is a long-time designer and developer of homes throughout the United States and has worked for several large home builders.
Click the photo to see the before and after
Both exploration exercises yielded similar expectations for future healthy homes with flexibility, age in place, and homes incorporated into a walkable community. Wellogy continues to evolve their healthy home design concepts and create solutions for designing communities focused on wellness. Our challenge now is to expand the consumer’s knowledge and benefit of the healthy home, influence the market away from urban sprawl and look to the future full of innovative ideas to improve our quality of life.
by Jennifer M. Bobbitt
What are the Blue Zones? The term “Blue Zone” comes from Dan Buettner, author and National Geographic Fellow, who researches areas of the world where people live long healthy lives. His curiosity with those living into their 100’s led to the discovery of common themes in areas with high numbers of centenarians. Buettner and his team identified places in the world where there are high concentrations of those living over 100 and labeled them “Blue Zones.” What is it about those areas that encourage longevity, and why are we trying to recreate it in our Wellogy (formerly Davis Wince) offices?
“The Power 9” The research uncovered that the “secrets” to longevity aren’t secrets at all but simple, easy to obtain, and maintain lifestyle choices that, when put into action, can benefit people for a lifetime. Buettner brands the everyday lifestyle choices common among the Blue Zone regions as the “The Power 9”.
Wellogy thought it would be interesting to incorporate “The Power 9” into our office culture. Throughout the evolution of our firm, we’ve been exploring how to make a lasting impact and ignite change in health and wellness by rethinking the way we design communities, buildings, and homes. Our journey started when our design experience collided with our passion, and we discovered our purpose- To Create Places of Well Bing to Enrich People’s Lives. We accomplish this by incorporating intentionally designed elements that help communities thrive and proposer- a concept we call Healthy Urbanism™. To thoroughly explore our purpose, we decided to make healthy changes and support opportunities to learn more in the place where we spend our days- at work.
Following the Power 9 areas for improvement, we asked everyone to participate by taking a topic to research and present on at our weekly staff meeting. The presentations have been very informative, interactive, and all very unique.
Stretch time and standing desks in action in our Denver, CO office. Below: Wellogy President and Founding Principal, Buck Wince provides examples of office stretching.
Additionally, we asked a sample group from each office to take the Blue Zone True Vitality Test. According to the Blue Zone website, “calculates your life expectancy and how long you’ll stay healthy.” We also took the Blue Zone True Happiness Test “to improve your environment and maximize happiness.” The tests are based on leading scientific research and make recommendations to improve your well-being. We plan to retake the test at the end of our nine-week challenge to determine if we’ve improved our scores. More important than the actual score, though, is the impact the changes are having on our day to day wellness. We’ve also explored the “The Blue Zone Kitchen: 100 Recipes to Live to 100” cookbook and shared recipes while encouraging healthy eating at our office Blue Zone breakfast.
Our monthly potluck/ cookouts focus on fresh and healthy foods.
From walking meetings, standing desks, stretching breaks, healthy snack options, and increased awareness of the benefits of plant-based diets, we have all learned something that we have taken home and incorporated into our daily lives. While we may not all live to be 100, working together to make changes to be better and create a healthier way of life for the next generation, benefits us all in hundreds of ways.
by Jennifer M. Bobbitt
Can architecture affect your health? We passionately believe that it can. That’s why we’re working with partners engaged in designing a better way to live. From healthcare, senior housing, higher education, and our other market segments, the goals for each partnership are the same- to enhance and improve the quality of life by creating a new standard in the way we live and interact with the built environment.
We’re on a mission to incorporate elements of Healthy Urbanism™ into every project we deliver. What is Healthy Urbanism™? It’s the integration of intentionally designed elements that helps communities thrive and prosper. No matter what the size of the project, an impact occurs when the built environment is purposely designed for wellness, creating a ripple effect that places a priority on health. The result is a wellness-centered community with the potential for improved physical health, accessibility to medical care, healthy food, activity, and social interaction.
Our projects can be as broad as a surgery center in a new community to ensure better outcomes for its residents, and designing student dining halls with a focus on healthier choices, and as specific as designing buildings with sustainable materials that incorporate walking and bike paths to promote physical activity. At the heart of Healthy Urbanism™ is the drive to reimagine health by creating communities of wellness. We hope you’ll join us on the journey as we create places of well being to enrich people’s lives.
Wellogy (formerly Davis Wince, Ltd.) registered architect and principal, Matt Canterna, AIA is the architect and project manager for the New 18th Street Child Care Center at Nationwide Children’s Hospital (NCH). The first phase of the design recently wrapped up construction and the facility is open to provide care for the children of NCH employees. To follow, Canterna provides insight and an “inside the design” overview of the many unique elements incorporated into this fun, fresh, and engaging facility for the pickiest of end-users.
The exterior design speaks to the brand and aesthetic of the growing NCH campus. The goal of the new facility is to be unique yet still convey the same sense of promise that every child and family feels when entering a NCH facility. A challenge was matching our two-story building to the look and feel of the campus composed predominantly of high-rise buildings. The solution was to use two colors of cast stone to complement the look of the rest of the campus composed mostly of precast panels.
The new Child Care Center was designed in two phases to allow for continued operation and the expansion of the building to provide care for more infants and toddlers. Phase 1 matched the current program size of the existing building and is designed and built in the parking lot of the existing facility. The program is operating in the new building and the previous center was recently demolished. Phase 2 builds the second half of the new building, which will double the number of children (and families) that they can serve. Phase 2 will be built in the footprint of the demolished existing building, and will also include a larger preschool playground as well as a staff parking lot.
Every square inch of the site is utilized. The new Child Care Center is located on a narrow, long urban site bounded by an artery street, city alley, and a major thoroughfare to the south. The existing child care center (building, playgrounds, and parent drop off) remained fully operational during the construction of the new facility.
The entire facility was designed to promote transparency and ensure total “sight and sound” of the children. You can see straight through the building in the center; the lobby, art room, extended learning areas- all open to the corridor and each other with full height glass along the corridor that promotes an expansive imagination and interest in other students, classes and activities.
Key features of the design include a large, central lobby with branded wall coverings, abundant natural light, double height ceilings, and a monumental open stair all serve as a great transparent ‘welcome’ to the building.
Also, unique to the design of the lobby is a book nook. This space provides teachers and students with an escape on a wet or blustery day when the playground is closed and promotes impromptu learning while students are waiting for pickup or checking in at drop off.
New to this facility is a full commercial kitchen and reading room. The kitchen allows for a chef to join the staff and prepare fresh and nutritious meals distinctively designed for the kids, instead of having food shipped over from the hospital’s main kitchen. This enhances the culinary offerings and reduces operating costs. Coming in Phase 2 is a reading room with computers to allow the center to provide break out lessons and activities for preschool and kindergarten students who are reading at an advanced level.
All infant and toddler rooms are on the first floor, with large open windows and doors to their age-appropriate playgrounds. A few key design elements to ensure continual sight and sound monitoring include an infant changing station positioned so that teachers will never have their back to the room or other students. Infant classrooms are paired, sharing a kitchen. The kitchens are centered and open to one another with a semi-circle design to promote a line of sight into the play area for teachers preparing bottles and food in the kitchens. The pairing of infant rooms also allows for staff flexibility, with aides able to float from room to room to support the needs of either classroom when appropriate.
Toddler rooms kitchens are also paired, but a sliding barn door that can close if one class is engaged in a quiet activity or nap time. The center of the classroom is open and spacious, for the flexibility of learning activities. The teacher desk is along the wall, with computer hookup to a large wall monitor so that teachers can pull up pictures and video to support their lesson plans. Large windows and door connect to their playground. The window sills are intentionally low so that the toddlers can look out. A sink – at child height, of course – is located just inside the playground door so that students can wash their hands coming in from play. Preschool and Kindergarten Rooms are located on the second floor in a similar layout and with the same primary design goals as the toddler rooms.
The new Child Care Center promotes wellbeing and development through unique design details. A quarter circle stair step was designed into a corner in each room, with three 4” steps to allow older infants to learn how to crawl up and down stairs. The stairs are covered in a fun, fuzzy carpet that is waterproof, stain resistant, and easily cleaned. The infant rooms also have a half-wall ‘vestibule’ for parents to check in, complete with a bench for parents to put the booties on their shoes to walk into the classroom if needed, and a built-in car-seat storage cabinet so if one parent drops off and another picks up, the car seat can stay with the child.
Security and safety were the primary design considerations. The facility has many security cameras throughout the interior and exterior. Parents are provided access cards to swipe in at the main door, and a video intercom is provided for guests and visitors. Exit stair doors and the elevator doors are also access controlled, to prevent the little ones from getting stuck/trapped/hide in the elevator or stairs. Additionally, playground gates all have alarmed panic hardware, to alert staff if a passerby is trying to enter the playground.
The design team worked with the narrow site to create an undulating topography that promotes exploration, changes in materials, and creates ‘destinations’ throughout the play space. The theme is ‘natural playscape’ – to reinforce the branding of the hospital but also provide a unique play experience that promotes learning through exploration rather than just dropping play structures on a flat site.
The design team wrapped the building with playgrounds so that they are accessible from every first-floor classroom and the south end of the building. This provides both security and a natural (and vibrant) extension of the classrooms with large windows connecting the spaces.
Built with all ‘outsulation’ – all insulation was continuous rigid insulation installed outside of the building sheathing to improve thermal performance. No thermal breaks with old school fiberglass batt insulation!
We applied a special UV resistant coating on the CMU wall that separates Phase 1 and Phase 2; this allowed us to protect the finished interior of phase 1 while saving cost vs. installing then removing a temporary cladding system on that wall. Most coatings are not resistant move than 60 days to the UV rays of the sun; we applied a coating that is resistant 180 days in order to provide the construction team time to erect and enclose the Phase 2 building before that coating starts to break down.
The lighting control system includes ‘vacancy sensors’ in each room. The difference between an occupancy sensor and a vacancy sensor is that a vacancy sensor requires a user to manually turn ‘ON’ a light, where the occupancy sensor automatically turns it on upon sensing you enter. This saves energy when the outside natural light is enough to satisfy the needs of the user when they enter a room, instead of the occ sensory assuming you always need more light. Both systems turn the lights off after a programmed amount of time after it senses you’ve exited a room.
The lobby lights also monitor the amount of daylight coming in through the curtain wall and dim or turn them off when they’re not needed.
Philip “Buck” Wince, Jr., AIA, LEED® AP is a featured panelist at the 2019 BOMA Medical Office Buildings & Healthcare Real Estate Conference, May 1-3 in Minneapolis, MN. The session titled, “Healthy Urbanism™: The Next Chapter in Healthcare Design” outlines the opportunities in planning and architecture to “create places of well being to enrich people’s lives,” according to Wince.
The annual BOMA conference hosts over 1,300 senior executives and professionals from hospital and health systems, developers, investors and lenders, property and facility managers, architects and design professionals, brokers and leasing agents, physician owners of real estate and health law and real estate attorneys.
Wince is the Founding Principal and President of Wellogy (formerly Davis Wince, Ltd.) an architecture and planning firm with offices in Ohio, Colorado and Florida. Wellogy trademarked the term Healthy Urbanism™ as it is the core driver and passion behind all of their projects. Healthy Urbanism™ is the integration of intentionally designed elements that enable communities to thrive and prosper. The result is improved physical health, accessibility to health care, healthy food, activity, and social interaction. Wellogy incorporates the core elements of Healthy Urbanism™ into every project they design. This can be as broad as developing a planned community with a hospital led medically integrated facility at the core, and as specific as designing buildings with healthy, sustainable materials that incorporate walking and bike paths. According to Wince, “no matter what the size of the project, the impact can be felt when the built environment is intentionally designed for wellness, creating a ripple effect that places a priority on health”.
Wellogy (formerly Davis Wince, Ltd.) is currently working with Ohlson Lavoie Collaborative (OLC) on The Lake Nona Center for Well Being, located in the heart of Lake Nona’s Medical City in Orlando, FL. The Center for Well Being is the seamless integration of a 130,000 sf, 3-story Wellness Center, a 120,000 sf, 5-story Medical Office Building, and 38,700 sf of Class A retail space. This unique, unprecedented architectural statement will serve as the wellness headquarters for a ground-up, master-planned development of housing, retail, corporate headquarters, entertainment, dining, education, hospitality and healthcare destined to be known as the healthiest community in America.
|
|
|
|
|
