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Designing an Experience for Whole-Person Health

About Turan Duda

Turan Duda believes passionately in ideas as a catalyst for great design. His conceptual focus and dynamic design approach have created innovative projects for a wide spectrum of building types, scales and purposes. Duda is an advocate for placemaking, whether the location is an urban or sylvan site. He is dedicated to reshaping building form to meet the demands of today’s communities, foster a sustainable world and inspire the future.

An international designer, his work is helping shape cities that include Austin, Atlanta, Washington, Raleigh-Durham, Monterey (Mexico) and now, Winter Park, Florida.

With a focus on creating public spaces that strengthen a sense of community, improve social wellbeing and elevate quality of life, Duda|Paine was the ideal choice to transform the Center’s campus into an experience that connected the human spirit with the spirit of place.    

At the project’s helm, visionary architect Turan Duda drew inspiration from the Center’s existing site and leveraged the inherent healing power of nature. Informed by the disciplines of Wholeness, Fitness and Medicine, the architect sought to create a space that integrated these concepts in a single, innovative space. The outcome is a design that transcends the bounds of a simple building and creates a layered experience anchored by a belief in architecture to support whole-person health.

Vital to the Center’s design is the interplay of the gardens and physical structure. The garden walls create the basic geometry of the building, allowing creative design options for unique openings, garden-like expressions using stucco and wood and developing spaces on multiple floors. Moreover, the interplay of the walls with the human body supports sitting, standing, reaching and inhabiting.

For a welcoming and inviting central space, the architect used warm wood tones, natural light and an undulating ceiling to create a peaceful experience in the Commons, as community members move through it to explore the Center’s services and offerings, as well as with friends, new and old.  

Visit the Center today for a first-hand experience of this one-of-a-kind design.

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