Healthcare Design - May 2020 - 33

nance staff to service equipment 24/7 no matter
what's happening outside."

CHAD B AUMER

NO MORE WORKAROUNDS

Given Marquette's relative geographic isolation
(the nearest interstate is a three-hour drive), the
new campus is an important lifeline, serving as a
regional medical center for the city of 21,000 as well
as for much of the central Upper Peninsula. The
229-bed hospital alone houses a 24-hour ED; surgical, pediatric, and behavioral healthcare; women's
services; cancer care; cardiac care; and laboratory
and imaging services.
Recognizing that the greenbuild project represented the chance to correct some of the inefficiencies that had developed at LifePoint's decades-old
facility, as well as improve the patient experience,
the project team attended local public hearings and
interviewed staff to gather input on changes sought
in the new facility. While the existing facility had
inefficient adjacencies and confusing circulation
paths, the staff, Gore notes, had made the best of the
situation by creating a series of workarounds. "They
explained what those strategies were, and how they
would like to see the [new] hospital designed in such
a way that they would be eliminated," he says.
For example, one problem that came up was the
proximity of the labor and delivery department
to surgery, with birthing housed on an upper floor
in one building and surgery located across the
street on the basement level. "One of the earliest

STRIKING
SOLUTION

LEFT: Because
Marquette, Mich.,
is one of the
snowiest cities in
the continental
U.S., the main
entrance is covered
by a sweeping
canopy to shield
visitors. OPPOSITE,
BOTTOM: The
concourse connects
visitors to all major
hospital functions
along a visually
cohesive space
that's bookended by
entrances.

The design team
partnered with
the Michigan
Audubon Society
to craft an
exterior skin
that would deter
bird collisions,
including glazing
that's minimally
reflective and
fritted glass in
the first 40 feet
above the ground,
which is the
critical location for
collisions.

Heavy snowfall wasn't
the only natural phenomenon that had a major
impact on the design of
the UP Health System-
Marquette hospital.
Another was the huge
flocks of migratory birds
traversing the skies
overhead, both as they
head south for the winter
and back home in the
spring.
During a planning
commission public hearing on the project, Greg
Gore, project executive/senior architect at
Gresham Smith, says his
team first became aware
of concerns that birds
such as warblers, sparrows, robins, and geese
might hit the building
(commonly referred to
as a "strike"). "Someone
in the audience asked,
'What are you going to
do about reducing the
bird strikes a big building like this would likely
experience?'" he recalls.
"We said we'd check
into that."
In talking with state
wildlife officials and
Michigan's Audubon

Society, the designers
realized that the project's eight-story patient
tower would indeed be
a likely target for migratory birds-especially if
its exterior was a typical
glass tower.
"With highly reflective, repetitive building
envelopes, birds have
difficulty ascertaining
there is a building there
and not a reflection of
the sky, which leads
to strikes," Gore says.
"Moreover, with hospitals, we try to provide
some reflectivity to the
patient room glazing to
provide privacy."
A solution to balancing the patient experience with protecting
the birds was found by
using multiple colors
and multiple grades of
reflectivity on the exterior so the birds could
identify and avoid the
building, Gore says.
"And doing so had the
added bonus of giving
it a unique appearance
that adds to the hospital's visual prominence
in the town."-MH

MAY 2020

33
Healthcare Design - May 2020

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