Cleveland: Cleveland Clinic Developments (University Circle)

[MayDay 20]

Am I the only one who is completely unimpressed with the design for the new heart center at the Clinic? They hype it up as the epicenter of their globally known flagship speciality and all they can come up with is a quarter-round wall of glass? This thing won't be any taller than the Crile building so it's not as if this could fly as the new 'signature' building of the Clinic. It's uninspiring and the huge plaza doesn't add anything as viable public space. Who is the architect?

[X 10]

Mayday, NBBJ is the architect.  I'm not impressed with it either.  All of their neighbors in University Circle seem to finally be waking up to the need to help create a neighborhood around their campuses, but the Clinic is just pushing on with these psuedo-suburban, dead at street level designs.  The Clinic does, by the way, see this as their new signature building.  They will be building a grand Avenue of trees across from their new parking garage, near that 1970's era hotel/retail thing.  Here's a concept drawing

 

 

[oallostavros 0]

I too expected a bit more for their signature building.  Here are some more renderings anyway.  Thanks for the help X.

 

 

[oallostavros 0]

Heres a rendering of the new clinic parking garage / office combo across the street from the future heart center.  You can see the outline of this building in the picture that X posted earlier.  Its the building along the tree lined boulevard that leads to the heart center.   

 

I think the rendering is a bit underepresentative of what the building actually looks like.  Last I saw it, seemed the building did a good job blending in with the rest of the clinic campus.

 

[oallostavros 0]

Anyone know how the expansion of the Clinic's research building is coming along?

[oallostavros 0]

Clinic campus

 

[X 10]

Anyone know how the expansion of the Clinic's research building is coming along?

 

The exterior looks to be pretty much finished.

[KJP 59]

I don't know who the Cleveland Clinic's architects are, but they seem to design their buildings as if in a vacuum. Don't they go to the site of the proposed building to look at what the surrounding architecture is like? Based on the design of the Heart Center, I wouldn't be surprised if the architect looked at the classic-styled building to the west of the site and said "f*ck it, I'm going to design what I want." That is, if he looked at it at all. What an freakin' abortion!

 

Where are the transitions, sense of place and the respect for surroundings? And, as others have pointed out, these are basically suburban buildings placed in an urban environment, with no street interface, further fostering more dead sidewalks. CWRU's residential project, by comparison, embodies features of surrounding buildings -- enough that if someone showed me a picture of it without first explaining where or what it was, I could probably identify it as being somewhere on Cleveland's east side.

 

Seems that Cleveland Clinic's architects either need to go back to design school or seek refunds for the education they never got.

 

KJP

[X 10]

The architect is a big national firm, and if the local client doesn't care, neither do they.  And trust me, hopitals don't care.  The VA's expansion, MetroHealth's expansions, University Hospital, none of them are any better.  They all see themselves as self contained campuses that both their workers and their clients drive to from the suburbs.  To hell with the surrounding neighborhood.

[FerrariEnzo 0]

Well my neighbor here in Shaker happens to be a big wig cardiologist at the clinic and he told me yesterday that Clevlenad refused to let the clinic build a skybriddge over Euclid connecting the new heart center with the old campus, so they are building a subterranean one supposofly with shops and stuff.  He also had some neat renderings, if I can get a hold of them I shall post.  Also, the Case residtial exspanion is boring and safe.  Also, the arcitecht for the Clinic may be another nieghbor of mine, Bostwick of Collins Gordon and Bostwick, he used to be uner Ceasar Pelli and broke off, he has done many Clinic buildings and I wouldny be suprised if had something to do with this one, he also did the Cleveland Sewer building.  Whoo, Im done.

[X 10]

Its NBBJ, here is their website:

 

http://www.nbbj.com/whatwedo/markets/healthcare/

 

As far as the Case residential expansion being boring and safe-I agree its safe, but I think that's ok.  Not every building should be a wild landmark.  Any great urban environment is made up largely of non-descript "Discreet" buildings.  The question is if they do well at that.  I think that they will.  Should every building be a Peter B. Lewis building, or a Rem Koolhas (God I hope not).  I think that you'd end up with a loud and ultimately crass environment.  Those types of buildings are best when they are thoughtfully inserted into a nice, well thought out urban environment.

[oallostavros 0]

How does it look?

 

Anyone know how the expansion of the Clinic's research building is coming along?

 

The exterior looks to be pretty much finished.

[X 10]

Looks like the rest of the Clinic's architecture.  Modern, bland, bands of stone and glass.  Curved.  I don't have a picture.  On the bright side, it looks like jobs.

[oallostavros 0]

Some pictures of construction of the Cleveland Clinic Stem Cell Research Building.  The Clinic actually closed down a street for this building.  I bet it won't be long before the building next door comes down. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[the pope 0]

its amazing how much the clinic has grown in the last ten years......

 

Its funny when i take my dad down there, and back in the day he can only recall one building (which pretty much is true)

[FerrariEnzo 0]

I wish they branched out arcitecuraly, pink will go out of style at some point.

[oallostavros 0]

Updated shot of Clinic Stem Cell building - Not bad I say :clap:

 

[KJP 59]

Why in the world does CCF's Heart Center have a projected cost of $300 million??? I hope that isn't just for building that squat, unimaginative structure, but includes funding for medical equipment, specialized utilities, plus a MAJOR reworking of the streetscape in the surrounding areas.

 

Even so, consider that the 57-story Key Tower was built for $343 million. Granted, that was 15 years ago, but I would have expected a $300 million investment in a new building would result in one that's at least 40 stories tall (or, at least 25 stories with a shitload of medical equipment packed into it).

 

As for the uninspired design of the Heart Center, may I be the first to use the phrase: "CCF's design for the new Heart Center lacks heart"?

 

KJP

[oallostavros 0]

 

 

 

 

 

 

[punch 0]

Anyone know what the sq. footage of the clinic is?

[MayDay 20]

According to the Turner Construction web site, the Cole Eye Institute (a sizable building) is 135,000 sq. feet.

[Map Boy 0]

Hmmm...seems kind of odd that they haven't done this already...seeing as they've been building at a massive clip for the past several decades!  I'm interested to see what they come up with, but why would they wait until 2005 to see the need for a "comprehensive" master plan?

[FerrariEnzo 0]

One million??  I'll ask my neighbor what thes low down on all of this.  I will also steal one of his Doctor only news letters that has some great inside scoops... spy mission for Urbanohio...

[Map Boy 0]

yeah! spy-tech!

[nsc 0]

One million sqft is accurrate.  Remember, the center is 3 buildings.  I saw that the demo has started, does anyone know if that is almost completed. 

[X 10]

They had been saying 5-600,000 sq ft.  One million square feet is absolutely huge.  Isn't Key Tower only 1.5 million?

[buildingcincinnati 0]

Yeah, I think Key is 1.5M.

[oallostavros 0]

Here's their timeline:

 

Garage Demolition: April – June 2005

 

Lay Foundation: June 2005 – Dec. 2005

 

Erect Structure: Sept. 2005 – Dec. 2006

 

Exterior Wall Enclosure: Oct. 2006 – March 2007

 

Interior Finishes, Site Work and Move In: Nov. 2006 – Sept. 2008

 

In 2007, the first two floors will be finished and the front doors will open.

[oallostavros 0]

I think it'll grow on us.

 

 

 

 

 

 

[FerrariEnzo 0]

Could be worse..could be better.

[zaceman 0]

i have no complaints at all about it, i think its a nice building... for a hospital heh

[FerrariEnzo 0]

This is no hospital!!  Its the dark empire....cosgrove as the emperor and this building as the death star....

[KJP 59]

Sorry folks, but the architect who designed that slice of cheese must have been in one hell of a hurry. There's ZERO imagination in it.

 

I realize that architects design from the inside out, so perhaps the interior is a lot more interesting...before the architect ran out of ideas by the time he/she got around to designing the exterior.

 

Like I've said before, the Heart Center has no "heart"

 

KJP

[X 10]

I think you're supposed to marvel at its cold, abstract austerity.  Or something.  Crap.

[Qwios 0]

That's the worst rendering I've seen thus far...  I was walking around the clinic campus today, well now yesterday but I had a hard time getting out onto the street and back in.  Too many fricking emergency exits with alarms.  The construction barriers didn't help either.  They're what forced me to take the skyway and then try and find my way down to earth from there.  Getting back to the new building..  I don't think the clinic cares what the building looks like because a large portion of the people going there will take the tunnel from the parking garage on the other side of the intersection to get there.

[zaceman 0]

i dont know, not many of the other hospital buildings look any better, i wonder if theres a reason for this other than lack of vision

[Qwios 0]

I think I'm a lone dissenter as far as I like some of the other new buildings... especially in comparison with the drawing presented above.

[FerrariEnzo 0]

Its all the same pink marble crap that is a rip off of Caesar pelli...seeing as Bostwick who did some work on them was under pelli at some point its not hard to see why, but not exscuseable.

[oallostavros 0]

I don't mind the pink -I think its more important for their campus to be unified in a consistent style. 

[X 10]

Really the thing that is most important to a hospital architecturally is to present a clean and ultra modern appearance befitting their function as a place of high-tech healing.  They don't care so much about things like placemaking that we consider to be foremost.  I am not saying these two things are mutually exclusive, just that hospitals don't really consider the second to be important.