Client

Phoebe Putney Health System

Location

Americus, GA

Services

Architecture, Interior Design, Civil Engineering, Planning, Experiential Design and Wayfinding

Accolades

LEED Silver Certified

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A Category 3 tornado devastated the rural city of Americus, Georgia, destroying Sumter Regional Hospital—the town’s only medical facility. With a large number of physicians moving on to other medical centers and some practicing out of trailers, the city of Americus desperately needed a new facility. In response, Phoebe Putney Health System selected Gresham Smith to master plan a brand-new acute care hospital. The end result? A state-of-the-art replacement facility renamed Phoebe Sumter Medical Center that not only meets the specific needs of the community but also attracts top-tier physicians and nurses from larger cities, such as Atlanta.

190k
square feet
250
bed capacity
3
medical office buildings
aerial view of hospital campus

Gresham Smith was initially charged with designing a 100-bed hospital, but it soon became apparent that the community didn’t merely need to replace what was lost. They needed a new facility that was rightsized and designed to provide an efficient, flexible and patient-centric healthcare environment. We conducted a detailed market analysis to determine the optimal number of beds for the replacement hospital and recommended that a 76-bed facility—with the potential to expand to up to 250 beds—was much more reasonable and financially sustainable.

exterior of medical office building

The new 76-bed, 190,000-square-foot hospital and three freestanding medical office buildings were arranged on the 40-acre campus using the principles of New Urbanism—a strategy that looks at how a building fits within the larger whole. Rather than design a single building, we decided to create a “medical village” that organized the hospital building and three MOBs around a public town square, allowing the heart of the campus to serve as a stage for community events while reflecting Phoebe Sumter’s commitment to Americus.

patient room
vegetation growing on a flat roof

Evidence-based design strategies such as family zones and bedside control of the room’s environment were incorporated into the patient rooms. To provide patients with a pleasant view and add to the facility’s overall sustainability, a roof garden was situated on top of the hospital’s main building. Phoebe Sumter Medical Center was the first LEED Silver-certified medical campus in the southeastern United States.