CASE STUDY #3

Photo Credits: Chris Cooper; Courtesy of Pittsburgh Corning Glass Block

Lenox Hill Healthplex

Location: New York, NY
Architect: Perkins Eastman
Client: North Shore-LIJ Health System

Background: The 1964 headquarters of the National Maritime Union, is now home to a much-needed emergency healthcare provider. Perkins Eastman transformed the ground floor of this six-story structure into a 28,000-square-foot “HealthPlex”.

Challenges: Fitting a technology-intense healthcare facility within this architectural one-off design meant some creative approaches were needed. The building’s original architect, Albert Ledner was a Frank Lloyd Wright student who freely mixed a double-height hall with a dramatic glass-block enclosure of paired, interlocking circles that were tucked beneath suspended precast concrete panels above.

Design Outcomes: A new main entrance welcomes walk-in patients, who proceed through a glass vestibule and pass into a small lobby where triage staff determines the severity and urgency of a condition. To either side, newly replaced glass-block walls soften the geometry of the waiting rooms. In these rooms, Perkins Eastman interior designer Maureen Carley-Vallejo hung colorful globe light fixtures, lined the inner surface with teak-colored laminate, and drew on the original theme of interlocking circles in terrazzo floor patterns. Because the entire facility could be needed for triage, easily cleanable materials were necessary. The glass block and other materials, fit this need beautifully.

Such a radical transformation of the building could not occur without alterations to its exterior, all of which had to be approved by the New York Landmarks Preservation Commission. The curve on the north side of the circular glass-block base was made shallower to fit program space, for example. And instead of entrances tucked under the suspended exterior panels, the walk-in vestibule is welcomingly transparent as it projects out toward the sidewalk.