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Architects: Yazdani Studio of CannonDesign
- Area: 476500 ft²
- Year: 2012
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Photographs:Thomas Mayer
Text description provided by the architects. The Gates Vascular Institute (GVI) is a one-of-a-kind facility planned as a cornerstone of a world- class academic medical center. The facility spans 10 floors and includes 59 exam rooms, five admissions offices, 62 private rooms and several patient and family amenities including a cafeÌ, wellness center/library and multi-purpose classrooms.
GVI also accommodates 16 intensive care beds, seven surgery rooms, 15 labs and an entire SUNY Buffalo research facility with labs for research, operations and a vivarium and incubator. The institute is intended to bring people — patients, surgeons and researchers — together for the exchange of knowledge and growth.
This new 10-story, $291 million urban structure accommodates three different disciplines, University at Buffalo, Kaleida Health and Jacobs research institute, while facilitating the rapid changes each is currently undergoing. Yazdani Studio of Cannon Design led the process of bringing 3 institutions together and developing a physical space that could create synergistic thinking.
The design accommodates the sometimes conflicting functional needs of 4 different cultures in one high-performance facility – translational research, education, business, and clinical care. The building offers space for patient care and research labs as well as a prototype fabrication, research funding specialists, and research publication. Integrating three clients and evolving disciplines into one building necessitated an adaptable building. Isolating the building core to one side of the floor plate maximizes flexibility by creating unfettered real estate. Program elements common to each client were collocated, encouraging collaboration and the sharing of ideas.
To support the goal of being a “100 year building,†the structure utilizes a planning module for healthcare facilities that can be readily adapted from one type of facility to a radically different type, facilitating expansion, and accommodation of future technologies and conversion of building zones to entirely different functions.
