As the flagship building in the mill site’s redevelopment, our design team knew the hospital had to capture the history of the location. We ended up reusing 100,000 salvaged bricks from the old mill buildings on the hospital’s façade and we salvaged more than 240 feet of wooden beams from old stock houses for cladding interior walls. The building’s rhythm and proportions draw on the mill’s original architecture, complementing the building types and streetscapes found around Ludlow.
HealthSouth wanted a new rehab environment that not only aided in the physical therapy process, but also promoted patient mobility. We created a spacious, well-organized therapy gym to support care, while new equipment and technology—such as HealthSouth’s AutoAmbulator, which safely places a patient in standing position and robotically helps their legs walk on a treadmill—were incorporated into the space. Long corridors are purposefully designed for gait training and floor patters promote movement.
In addition to offering river or courtyard views, as well as abundant natural light through large windows, each private patient room is ADA-compliant and intentionally spacious to help with patient mobility and staff access. Controls in each room are conveniently located at the patient’s bedside, which allow them to operate the lighting, TV and nurse call. Each room also features a barrier-free in-suite bathroom, where design accents such as pebble stones and natural earth tones simulate river stones found along the banks of the Chicopee.