The Architect’s Vision for Center for Health & Wellbeing

—Turan Duda, FAIA

The Vision

The architect’s vision and now the goal for the Center for Health & Wellbeing is to bring the three realms of Wholeness, Fitness, and Medicine into one integrated center.

The Wholeness components center on community and educational offerings. Secondly, the Fitness program is anchored by the new Peggy & Philip B. Crosby Wellness Center. In addition, the Medicine aspects include offices for clinical and therapeutic services.  Hence, the concept of merging these three disciplines together is to encourage the overlap and to blur the boundaries between them.

The architecture that houses this new paradigm draws its inspiration from the site and the inherent healing power of nature and gardens.

Seeing it Made Into Reality

For the architect’s vision to be made into reality, it was essential that the new center, not just be a building but rather an experience. The building is informed by the adjacency of multiple gardens and a direct correlation to the walls that engage them.

The garden walls that emerge on the site set the basic geometry of the building. Additionally, the height of the walls has a relationship to the human body relative to sitting, standing, reaching and inhabiting. Subsequently, as the walls become one story or two stories, they are occupied by the program. The simple device of shaping these walls allows the inventiveness to create unique openings and garden-like expressions with stucco and wood.

Moreover, the centermost space is the warm inviting Commons that provides unexpected encounters and discoveries about health and wellness. It is the community center that offers choices, enlightens, and becomes a special place to meet friends. Furthermore, space is clad in warm shades of wood. As well as an undulating ceiling that enlivens the experience of moving through it. Space is the light-filled centerpiece of the complex with a memorable presence in place making.

The Center for Health & Wellbeing is a layered experience. Layers of gardens, layers of choices and layers of meaning. Every view will evoke a different perspective, ultimately adding up to a rich experience.