Healthcare Design - October 2020 - 14

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OUNT SINAI WEST

14

OCTOBER 2020

ABOVE: The registration
area for the clinic has a
shallow-barrel vaulted
ceiling that recalls some
of the curved forms on
the exterior. RIGHT: The
building lobby includes
a small reception desk;
elevator; and a stairwell
with stone treads, perforated risers, and glass
guards that leads up to
the clinic.

er niches in the corridors to encourage collaboration and coordination
among patient care teams.
Taking inspiration from the building's original architecture and blackand-white color palette with brass accents, Yablon says the clinic feels
"contemporary and restrained while echoing the grand and luxurious past
of the building." For example, the clinic's long, dramatic reception area is
designed to mimic the building's first floor grand hall that resembles a hotel lobby with reception desks clad in black solid-surface material.
In the end, Mazie says the challenges of working with a historic building
were worth the effort. "The Ansonia space has been very well received in
the community and has exceeded expectations in expanding Mount Sinai
primary care on the West Side of Manhattan," she says.-Tracey Walker,
managing editor

HCDMAGAZINE.COM

MICHAEL MORAN

medical center in
New York wanted
to make care more
convenient to its
patients and families on Manhattan's Upper West
Side while freeing
up space for other services at its existing hospital, says Lisa Mazie, chief administrative officer at Mount Sinai West. "The buildout of the
Ansonia practice was an opportunity for Mount
Sinai West to relocate our primary care and
dermatology practices from our 59th Street
hospital location to a neighborhood location
embedded in the West side," she says.
But the healthcare organization didn't choose
just any available location for its new clinic;
rather, it decided to move into space on the second floor of New York's 1904 Ansonia building,
a landmarked building at 74th Street and Broadway that's designed in the Beaux-Arts style
and features corner turrets, bay windows, and
deep light courts on the exterior of the building that help bring light into the interiors. "Our
approach was to marry the state-of-the-art
care provided by Mount Sinai Health with the
iconic building, creating a contemporary medical space that could only be in that location-a
long-time symbol of luxury in New York City,
the opposite of a 'doc-in- a-box' that could be
anywhere," says Stephen Yablon, principal and
founder of Stephen Yablon Architecture (New
York), which provided architecture and interior
design services on the project.
The project team began work on the Mount
Sinai Doctors Ansonia clinic, which opened in
fall 2018, by gutting the interior of more than
half of the second floor, preserving only the
original, landmarked windows. While the process gave them a blank slate, working within a
historic building presented challenges, some
of which were uncovered after the demolition. For example, the floor structure is terra
cotta blocks-quite common for the building's
time period for its fire-resistant properties but
tricky to work with in terms of hanging ceilings
and creating openings for shafts and penetrations, Yablon says.
The final layout organizes reception in a long
space on one side of the clinic with primary care
and dermatology clinics along the other side to
take advantage of the natural light provided by
the building's light courts. Instead of individual
physician offices, Mount Sinai utilizes caregiv-
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Healthcare Design - October 2020

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