May Architecture teamed with Skidmore, Owings & Merrill (SOM) to deliver a revolutionized model of cancer care for Winship Cancer Institute at Emory Midtown. The 17-story, 455,000-square-foot facility, located within the Midtown neighborhood of Atlanta, represents a culmination of five years of close collaboration with more than 150 end-users, patients, clinicians, volunteers, surgeons, hospital staff, and construction team members. Together, we embarked on an extensive Integrated Facility Design process that included an eight-week “Cardboard City” workshop, which included mocking up every clinical practice in the new facility, including the entire 40,000 SF perioperative floor. During this extensive process, we were challenged to create a new care model that had never been seen or imagined – nothing short of redefining patient care in a new world-class cancer care center.

The result of the process is described on the Winship Cancer Institute’s website as “a unique model of cancer care that places patients at the center of specialized care communities bridging outpatient and inpatient care and integrating groundbreaking research into preventions and treatments.”

The journey to get there was remarkable. It challenged everything we knew about the typical care model and medical facility design, reinventing the typical floor-plate arrangements and bringing services into smaller “care communities” organized by disease types. These care communities include both inpatient and outpatient units, universal rooms designed for both examination and infusion, diagnostics, research, and procedural spaces – all meant to ensure cohesive care while bringing specialized care to patients with similar needs. The connectivity created through two-story communal lobbies unites patients and families enduring the same experiences, providing a sense of community and comfort.