Florida Hospital Healthcare System’s new women’s hospital is designed to be a holistic women’s healthcare facility that complements the existing architecture on the flagship’s main campus and allows for new synergies of care.

When it’s fully built out, the 12-floor facility will house 336 licensed beds and obstetric, surgery, neonatal ICU, oncology, and cardiology services. The project earned an honorable mention in the 2016 Healthcare Design Showcase.

In contrast to the angular main hospital tower, the new 400,000-square-foot women’s hospital, designed by HKS, takes a playful and elegant approach that uses water as a powerful analogy for the role of women in our lives and society and a major concept grounding the project.

For example, the podium and tower rise from a fountain on the exterior, while the curtainwall’s horizontal elements, including precast bands, metal ribbons, sunshades, and mullions, reinforce the notion of flow. Inside, the water theme is continued through the materials palette, lighting, curated artworks, and spatial planning.

“Great consistency of exterior to interior,” said one Showcase juror, while others noted the project for its “lovely aesthetics.”

The original site plan was relocated to an adjacent plot of land already owned by the client to improve access from the tower’s new labor and delivery suites to the existing NICU. This shift created a closer adjacency between the two units, but shifted the building principal facades to an east/west orientation, so sun-shading devices and a highly insulated exterior skin system were added to address unwanted heat gain and glare.

Anne DiNardo is senior editor of Healthcare Design. She can be reached at anne.dinardo@emeraldexpo.com.