Healthcare Design - June/July 2022 - 23

accommodating all its clinical needs, including
exam rooms, X-ray equipment, and staff offices.
The organization spent the next several years
research-all together under one roof, with an optimized design for a highly
efficient patient and staff experience.
Opened in October 2021, the 180,000 square-foot, six-story Emory Mustrying
to find the right fit, including moving into
a renovated office building in an executive park
in 2004, and then, in 2016, relocating its sports
medicine division into a new 100,000-squarefoot
complex built in collaboration with the Atlanta
Hawks professional basketball team on the
same executive park campus. The latter, sited on
55 acres acquired by Emory, was closer to what
Boden envisioned as the best design-but still,
there were constraints. For example, while there
were better sight lines to patients, the building
layout meant that clinical spaces had to wrap
around the Hawks' practice courts, which separated
support staff from patient care areas.
During the design and build of the sports
medicine project, Boden was asked to lead a
task force to decide on the optimal use for the
land adjacent to the facility. The task force recommended
a health innovation district, which
would include a new central home for Emory's
musculoskeletal service line, including orthopedics
and spine care, physical therapy and rehabilitation,
imaging, ambulatory surgery, and
All patient exam rooms
include large LED
monitors that display
information about the
physician the patient is
seeing. Artwork, featured
throughout the building,
provides color against a
neutral background.
culoskeletal Institute houses 117 exam rooms, four ambulatory surgery
suites, six injection procedure suites, a physical therapy gym, advanced imaging,
and an education and research floor. " We were finally able to design
the entire facility from scratch, with no constraints, " Boden says.
FRESH START
Bill Leggett, principal at HKS (Atlanta), the firm behind the project's architecture
and interior design, says a guiding principle throughout the
design and planning of the new facility was the idea of using the building
form to communicate the building's purpose. Specifically, soft curved
walls and corners are designed to reflect the fluidity of motion that the institution
ultimately aims to help patients maintain or return to, he says.
Another design goal was to tell the story of the musculoskeletal system's
key elements-bones, muscles, cartilage, and nerves. " Throughout,
we took advantage of where we can utilize components of the body in the
design, " Leggett says. For example, on the exterior, precast panels have a
texture that's designed to reflect the structure of the bones, while graphics
on the glass curtain wall represent nerve veining. Inside, wavy patterns
in the terrazzo flooring and ceilings on the first floor are designed
to reference muscles. Additionally, the walls of the lobbies on the clinic
floors feature graphics and images, such as bone under a microscope,
with accompanying text that explains what viewers are seeing. " It's truly
an educational building, " Leggett says.
JUNE/JULY 2022
23
JONATHAN HILLYER
Healthcare Design - June/July 2022

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