Healthcare Design - March 2020 - 22

MARCH 2020

A B OV E : Illuminated

accent ceilings, natural
wood grain, and
hospitality-inspired
furniture at MSK
Bergen are elevated
touches characteristic
of the aesthetic created
through Heeley and
Frazier's collaboration.
L E FT: Exam/consult
rooms at MSK
Westchester established
a standard 120-squarefoot room module that's
now delivered at all
sites. The rooms are also
built with demountable
partitions for easy
reassignment as well
as floating millwork for
a hospitality touch that
also supports cleaning
protocols.

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less, stripped down to the basics, and have good,
strong design bones. We don't have the luxury
like hotels to refresh every few years. We live
with these things for 10, 15, 20 years, so whatever
we put in place, we want to make sure it's enduring." That's meant pushing back on some of
EwingCole's original ideas, stripping away some
of the detail to achieve a simpler vision: a spalike neutral palette with lots of wood tones and
pops of color introduced in more easily replaced
elements like furniture.
THE EVOLUTION

Westchester remains the favorite for both Heeley and Frazier, setting the tone and design language for numerous follow-up projects including the lauded MSK Bergen in Montvale, N.J.
(opened in 2018), and the most recent MSK Nassau in Nassau County, N.Y. (opened in 2019). And
while it was a very strong start to their collaboration, solutions have evolved over time.
For example, when planning Westchester, the
duo recognized that chemotherapy was changing and unknowns existed on how exactly treatment might be delivered in years to come-potentially in pill form or even within a patient's
home. To ensure chemotherapy/infusion spaces
would remain useful, they were-and continue
to be-built using demountable partitions. Additionally, a single room module of 120 square feet
for both exam/consult rooms and offices, also
first introduced at Westchester, is now the norm
to allow easy reassignment of space in the future.
In fact, flexibility has come to define solutions
being delivered today. With their latest collaboration, MSK Nassau, space for the future expan-

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designed more to serve staff than patients. "The
Westchester site is one of the first where all
rooms are private, with views to the exterior and
garden spaces," Frazier says. Additionally, adjacent "mobility zones" were created to support
families or for patients to use if they wished for
more social interaction during infusion. Exam
rooms and consult rooms were also combined
into a single exam/consult space, allowing easier
communication between physician, patient, and
caregivers. "That's an example of the thought
processes that transformed this whole built environment design," Heeley says.
While many of these solutions are commonplace in healthcare today, MSK was a trailblazer
in considering patient experience and how design
can better support it. However, taking that leap
didn't come without some pain points-specifically, Heeley's insistence that design partners challenge the healthcare status quo. "We, as an owner, push our consultants to a point where we always
say, 'make us uncomfortable,' which in turn makes our consultants uncomfortable," she says.
Heeley and Frazier agree that it's been a journey from that original Westchester facility, noting that the two didn't come to the project with the
same mindset at the time-in fact, it took a lot of work. For example, while
in agreement that communal tables and variation in seating choices were
good starting points, specifying materials that were interesting and different-decidedly not healthcare-took more time, Frazier says. In the end,
the firm has been able to embrace products traditionally specified for other
environments, such as hospitality, to achieve MSK's desired look. "What I
appreciate with MSK is that all they want to ensure is that a design meets
their cleaning protocol and is maintainable. And as long as we can do that,
we can come up with some very interesting and beautiful environments,"
Frazier says.
The partners also had to work to refine the overall aesthetic of Westchester to achieve what today Heeley describes as "spaces that are time-

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Healthcare Design - March 2020

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