photo by felix_le_chat
The Winnie Palmer Hospital for Women & Babies is my favorite piece of architecture in Orlando. It was completed in 2006 with a cost of $111 million and is the third largest birthing center in the US.
The photos don’t portray how bold and daring this building looks from I4: like a bunch of stacks of off-kilter poker chips waiting to be pushed all-in on the river. The lobby is encased in a huge glass sphere protruding from the building in an obvious womb allusion.
On the interior is a hotel design with warm decor, no overhead lighting, liberal use of natural light, soundproofed rooms and in-room equipment hidden by retractable art. The hospital also offers concierge service.
The coolest part of the design is that all the towers form clusters and cloverleafs around a central core, allowing usable space of 78 percent of the whole building vs about 60% for a conventional hospital and boosting proximity between staff and patients.
Designed and constructed by Jonathan Bailey Associates
