ZGF Architects LLP

Organization details: With one-half of its work dedicated to healthcare, the architecture and interior design firm ZGF—with its 500 staff members across offices in Portland, Ore.; Seattle; Los Angeles; New York; Washington, D.C.; and Canada—has advanced the industry through inpatient and outpatient facility and research laboratory projects in the U.S. and beyond. It boasts longstanding client relationships with the National Institutes of Health, Harvard University/Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, Memorial Sloan-Kettering, and Kaiser Permanente, among others, providing programming, master planning, new construction, and addition/remodeling services for buildings large and small. ZGF is a founding member of the American College of Healthcare Architects and an active participant in the AIA Academy of Architecture for Health, the American Society of Healthcare Engineers, and The Center for Health Design.

Year in review: Over the past 12 months, ZGF has worked on 74 active healthcare projects across 15 states as well as in China and Canada. Its projects have received plenty of industry praise, including Healthcare Design’s own Landscape Architecture for Healthcare Communities Award for the Seattle Children’s Building Hope project in Seattle; the Juror’s Choice Award from the IIDA Oregon Chapter for St. Charles Cancer Center in Bend, Ore.; and a Best Health Care project nod from Engineering News Record for St. Anthony Hospital Pendleton in Pendleton, Ore. ZGF has been keenly focused on high-performance design that’s achieved through a three-pronged approach of using integrated project delivery, Lean programming and operational planning, and sustainability to improve patient care while reducing costs. The firm is dedicated to capturing metrics on results, too. For example, the St. Anthony Pendleton project exceeded its goal of a 50 percent smaller building by achieving a 64 percent reduction in footprint, also improving staff satisfaction by 89 percent and pharmacy wait times thanks to just-in-time medication delivery. At Seattle Children’s, the team reduced the original project budget by 60 percent as well as caregiver travel distances by 80 percent and search time for supplies by 90 percent.

What’s next: ZGF is getting started on a research collaborative project with Seattle Children’s to investigate the benefits of the biophilic design and lighting strategies used in the building. And, naturally, the firm will be tackling new healthcare projects on the boards, as well. They include the 640,000-square-foot Teck Acute Care Centre at BC Children’s Hospital and BC Women’s Hospital + Health Centre in British Columbia, Canada, and the 164-bed, 275,000-square-foot Children’s Hospital of Saskatchewan at Canada’s Royal University Hospital, University of Saskatchewan. Completing this year is the 220,000-square-foot University of Arizona Cancer Center in Phoenix.

The HCD 10:

  • Architect: Paul Strohm, senior vice president and director of healthcare, HOK (St. Louis)
  • Researcher: Upali Nanda, vice president and director of research, HKS (Houston); executive director of the Center for Advanced Design Research and Education (CADRE)
  • Interior designer: Christine Hester Devens, associate principal and interior project designer, AECOM (Minneapolis)
  • Association/foundation executive: Jennie Evans, 2013-2014 president, Nursing Institute of Healthcare Design (NIHD)
  • Facility manager: Sean Gouvin, director of facilities planning and engineering operations, Baystate Health (Springfield, Mass.)
  • Educator: George Mann, Ronald L. Skaggs, FAIA, Endowed Professor of Health Facilities Design, College of Architecture, Texas A&M University (College Station, Texas)
  • Provider: Matthew Gutwein, president and CEO, Health & Hospital Corp. of Marion County, and Dr. Lisa E. Harris, CEO, Eskenazi Health (Indianapolis)
  • Building professional: Sam Moses, superintendent, Balfour Beatty Construction (Dallas)
  • Rising star: David Grandy, associate vice president and managing director of strategic innovation, HDR (Omaha, Neb.)
  • Organization of the year: ZGF Architects LLP