Gresham Smith Designs for a New Community Health Model with UF Health
Gresham Smith is pleased to announce that UF Health’s new medical office building at Raydient Places + Properties’ Wildlight community is complete. The two-story, 43,000-square-foot hub’s clinical services were selected by UF Health to directly respond to the community’s healthcare needs, including primary care and urgent care, pediatrics, obstetrics, lab and imaging, dentistry and behavioral health. Promoting wellness and providing easy access to preventive medicine, Wildlight is slated to become a national model for healthier communities.
“When Raydient Places + Properties and UF Health formed our strategic alliance to bring health services to the new, planned Wildight community, we leveraged the resources and expertise from across our University to envision a new paradigm. We aim to build a health making community from the ground up, one that meets shifting consumer expectations and, through health promotion, results in a higher quality of life,” said Dr. Leon Haley, M.H.S.A., CPE, FACEP, Vice President for Health Affairs, University of Florida; Dean, College of Medicine – Jacksonville; CEO, UF Health Jacksonville. “Gresham Smith combined insights from community health data and the confluence of consumerism and population health to design a forward-thinking care center.”
“The healthcare industry is undergoing tremendous change necessitated by unsustainable, ballooning costs, shrinking margins and little substantive progress towards better health. We have a responsibility to plan and design a built environment that drives community and population health management,” said Jim Kolb, AIA, LEED AP, senior architect and planner, Gresham Smith. “We partnered with UF Health from the outset to reimagine how to support a care model that moves beyond symptoms and sickness to wellness.”
Modular furniture — including sit/stand desks and standalone registration desks — provides further flexibility as well as creates adaptable workspace for staff and a hospitality-like feel. Two light wells in the circulation and staff areas feature column trellises filled with confederate jasmine as a biophilic design feature. A monumental stair encourages healthy movement.
Raydient Places + Properties’ aimed to establish a regional architectural style and create a sense of place in stark contrast to other rapidly growing developments throughout Florida. So, it created a set of design guidelines called Florida Low Country inspired by historical local communities. This develops a vernacular architecture that addresses placemaking goals such as scale, materiality, façade composition, roof design and landscaping. Tilt-up construction was chosen as a resilient exterior envelope. However, the team designed outside of the typical concrete box by the use of corner glazing, curtainwall systems, and an extruded second floor that creates a bay window. The firm provided architecture and interior design services. Gresham Smith is currently also designing a wellness center at Wildlight with UF Health, which will house physical therapy, community education space, a YMCA and other health promotion support spaces.