Jon Crane, FAIA, EDAC, LEED AP, senior vice president, director, translational health, HDR (Atlanta)

WHO HE IS: In 1990, Crane contributed to the design of the Aaron Diamond AIDS Research Center in New York, where clinical and translational research efforts led to the discovery of a treatment for AIDS that resulted in the once fatal disease becoming a manageable chronic condition. Since then, he’s worked with leading academic institutions—particularly those focused on cancer, infectious disease, neurosciences, ophthalmology, cardiovascular, and pediatrics—to create architecture that integrates research, science, and medical education with healthcare delivery, to accelerate the process of discovery and development of treatments. Today, he leads HDR’s Translational Health Sciences Initiative, working on projects including the MD Anderson Cancer Center Sheikh Zayed Bin Sultan Al Nahyan Building for Personalized Cancer Care in Houston, Johns Hopkins Medicine All Children’s Hospital Research and Education Facility in St. Petersburg, Fla., and Cincinnati Children’s Hospital Medical Center in Cincinnati. Additionally, he’s served as a consultant to leading global organizations, including the U.S. Centers for Disease Control & Prevention, World Health Organization, the National Institutes of Health, and Association of Public Health Laboratories. Crane also commits his time to developing a database of evidence, including novel research types, that he shares with the industry through lectures, classes, and workshops to further accelerate new architectural approaches to translational health facilities.

YEAR IN REVIEW: Crane touched more than 3 million square feet of translational health science space in the past year. He was and integral team member for the planning and design of the new 1.2 million-square-foot research hospital Shirley Ryan AbilityLab in Chicago, which fuses medical research and clinical care around the patient in an open, flexible model. “Jon’s contributions extend across several dimensions,” says Ed Case, executive vice president and CFO of Shirley Ryan AbilityLab. “He brought astute insight and perspective to the value of truly integrating research and clinical activities. He was clear this was not just an architectural exercise, but should be accompanied by a cultural change. His insights were key in the conceptual development of our new AbilityLab delivery model.” Crane also developed an “under-one-roof” strategy for the Fred & Pamela Buffett Cancer Center at the University of Nebraska Medical Center in Omaha, Neb. The 575,000-square-foot facility allows patients to access all clinical expertise and therapies in one vertical circulation core, while multidisciplinary teams can leverage the building’s adjacencies, technologies, and work settings to achieve new levels of transdisciplinary integration.

WHAT’S NEXT: Crane isn’t slowing down anytime soon, either, with projects in progress at The Ohio State University Wexner Medical Center, the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center, the Inova Center for Personalized Health, Rush University Medical Center’s Center for Advanced Health Care, and the Jackson Health University of Miami Rehabilitation Hospital for the Miami Project to Cure Paralysis.