Project category: Project in progress (January 2008)

Chief administrator: George Titus, VP of Construction and Engineering Facilities, (708) 216-8406

Firms: Pratt Design Studio, (773) 755-2000; Hellmuth, Obata + Kassabaum, Inc., (312) 782-1000

Design team: Robert Pratt, Design Principal; Madhu Gresla, Project Manager; Robert Meyer, Project Architect; Susan Suhar, Interior Designer (Pratt Design Studio); Sheila F. Cahnman, Lead Planning Principal; Jeff Neaves, Project Architect (Hellmuth, Obata + Kassabaum, Inc.)

Illustration: Pratt Design Studio

Total building area (sq. ft.): 176,000 (new); 60,000 (renovation)

Construction cost/sq. ft.: Not released

Total construction cost (excluding land): Not released

Pratt Design Studio began design on the Loyola Center for Heart & Vascular Medicine, along with an operating suite expansion and MRI project, in April of 2004. The project includes a new center for heart and vascular medicine and a major expansion of the existing surgery services. The new facility houses state-of-the-art electrophysiology (EP) and cardiac catheterization laboratories, 12 new operating rooms, a PACU, an on-campus MRI facility, and a new surgical processing center. The upper floors provide 64 private inpatient beds with waiting and support areas. The new building provides a unique and distinct campus identity that also serves the existing hospital.

This project includes an integrated interventional model for flexibility within the changing procedural environment. Pre- and postoperative rooms for surgery, catheterization, and EP are organized into a single, integrated process. The procedure rooms for all three departments are designed with the same central sterile access and sterile procedure, as well as being easily adaptable to one another.

The building landscape features a centrally located “green” space along the entrance drive, with views of a meditation/healing garden. The main entrance façade incorporates a tower that acts as a beacon to the community and serves as a vertical chase for the mechanical infrastructure to various floors. The main entry sequence is arranged around a centrally located, two-story main lobby that translates into a spine connecting the new facility with the existing campus and the existing hospital. Inpatient units are private rooms, providing accommodation for families, and waiting areas located toward the exterior are punctuated with niches for family waiting.

At Pratt Design Studio we make each project unique according to our client’s individual personality. We communicate with the client throughout the design process to understand the project’s “unique identifiers,” based on the location, surroundings, spiritual and cultural beliefs, and services provided. We create symbols of these icons, which become the DNA that is the basis for our creative direction.


The concept of a stylized sword and shield are incorporated into a pattern to represent “fighting illness” and “protection.” This pattern appears in the frieze and the column bases on the façade and is referenced again throughout the interiors creating a “tie that binds.”