Arnold Arboretum Cancer Therapy Center by Fiona Libby at Coroflot.com

Arnold Arboretum Cancer Therapy Center

Arnold Arboretum Cancer Therapy Center from Fiona Libby

Arnold Arboretum Cancer Therapy Center

The prompt for this group project was to create a cancer therapy center for the patients of Brigham and Women's Faulkner Hospital in Boston, Massachusetts. The Hospital is directly across the street from the Arnold Arboretum. The intent of our project was to design a building that provides a place for patients to get away from a hospital atmosphere, interact with nature, and socialize with other patients going through the same process.

The professor's intent for the project was to include a model in the final deliverables, but unfortunately COVID-19 made this impossible. Our group overcame the difficulty of designing strictly over zoom and text, and we were able to work cohesively on this 3 month project.

To give credit where due: my group partners and I worked together throughout the design process to align our ideas and shape the building. We split the work of the final imagery between the three of us: all images after the first three were made by my group partners.

This image was created in Procreate, a drawing app for iPad. The intent of this image is to show how the building is integrated into the site, and to hint at the narrative of our project. As shown, our project is wrapped in natural stone, and as glimpsed at the entrance, the interior shell of our project is mainly wood. This material choice is intended to help the patients transition from the concrete of the hospital to a more natural stone, into the soft healing space encased in soothing wood. The moss roof also removes the patients from the experience of a hospital and re-emphasizes the presence of nature around them.

Our floor plan is a hub and spoke plan. The main part of the building is the social hub in the center. In this space we have a kitchen, tables, a seating area, etcetera. The two spokes of the plan are more private areas. The wing at the top consists of two consultation rooms and a sitting area, and the lower wing contains the library. All the windows in the building are placed to frame specific moments of nature, making sure each room has a unique view of its surroundings. We used the building geometry as a module to create different aspects of the landscape; patios, the lawn area, and the gazebo. Since we were thinking a lot about framed moments of nature, we wanted to use the landscape to frame the project, while creating accessible outdoor spaces for the visitors

This image shows the hub of the building, the social space. The large window wall to the right looks out to the yard. The purpose of the interior of the project is to feel like a home, and to feel much different than the experience inside a hospital. In this space, we get an understanding of the different ceiling heights in the project. The tall ceiling and large window walls in the social hub makes the space feel larger and brighter, therefore making the people themselves feel more vibrant and more likely to want to socialize. In the private spokes of the building, holding the quiet seating area, the consultation rooms, and the library, the ceilings are lower. This allows those spaces to feel more intimate, quiet, and comforting.