Healthcare Design - September 2017 - 26

HCD 10

INTERIOR DESIGNER

KARI THORSEN
LEED AP, Green Belt Lean Certification for Healthcare, principal,
ZGF Architects LLP (Seattle)

TO P : Examples of the

circadian lighting used
inside a behavioral
health unit at Swedish
Medical Center-Ballard
R IG H T: University of Iowa
Hospitals and Clinics
Stead Family Children's
Hospital

26

WHO SHE IS: With 13 years of experience leading the planning
and interior design of many of ZGF's largest healthcare projects, Thorsen is well versed in gathering input from various
project stakeholders to identify the design solutions that will
best address their needs. But it's her
conversations with patients, families, and staff that serve as her biggest source of inspiration. "Recently a teenage patient shared that she
often felt talked over and couldn't
be a part of the care conversation.
She asked that patient beds be placed in a direction that allowed her to engage," she says. "I
hope to find more moments like this to create
powerful design solutions that keep patients at
the center of care and make them feel like they
have a voice." With a focus on pediatric and
oncology facilities, she's led the firm's interior
design team on several noteworthy projects,
including CHI Franciscan Health's St. Anthony
Hospital in Pendleton, Ore., and Seattle Cancer
Care Alliance's Bezos Family Immunotherapy
Clinic in Seattle.

SEPTEMBER 2017

HCDMAGAZINE.COM

WHAT'S NEXT: Looking to the next 13 months,
Thorsen has several projects in the works, including an 895,000-square-foot expansion and
renovation at Cincinnati Children's Hospital
Medical Center in Cincinnati, a 36,600-squarefoot outpatient clinic for Seattle Children's
Hospital's North Clinic in Everett, Wash., and a
clinical tower expansion for Seattle Cancer Care
Alliance in Seattle.

HALKIN MAS ON PHOTOGRAPHY (UNIVERSITY OF IOWA); BENJAMIN BENS CHNEIDER (SWEDISH MEDICAL CENTER)

THE

YEAR IN REVIEW: Thorsen frequently uses "community" as a central theme in her designs, to create calming environments focused on the needs
of patients, families, and staff. For example, at
the University of Iowa Hospitals and Clinics
Stead Family Children's Hospital in Iowa City,
Iowa, which opened in December 2016, she led
the interior design of the new 540,000-squarefoot children's hospital, which included a design
concept and environmental graphics program
based on the concept of a quilt that tells the story
of Iowa's ethos. The graphics feature four Iowan
scenes-farmlands, wetlands, woodlands, and
prairies-that are used in wayfinding throughout the large facility, from the public spaces to
each patient unit. She's also a champion of biophilic design, incorporating daylighting and an
ambient lighting strategy to support patients' circadian rhythms at a new behavioral health unit at
Swedish Medical Center-Ballard, which opened
in Seattle in May 2016. Leading the project's interior design team, Thorsen also incorporated a
materials palette that mimics patterns in nature,
such as a mosaic tile cladding for the columns
that simulates the relationship between the sky
and earth by shifting from lighter to darker colors
from top to bottom.
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