The Gates Vascular Institute and UB Clinical Research Center forms the cornerstone of a new world-class health sciences campus focused on the regeneration of downtown Buffalo.
The spirit of collaboration was the driving force uniting Kaleida and the University at Buffalo within a single structure, and the building strives to bring several disciplines—cardiovascular, neurovascular, peripheral vascular—and its patients, surgeons and researchers, together for the exchange of knowledge and growth.
The 476,000 sf facility achieves this by stacking a translational research building over a clinical vascular institute. The first four floors of this 10-story “vertical campus,” house the Gates Vascular Institute (GVI), with the Clinical and Translational Research Center (CTRC) occupying the top half of the building.
Sandwiched between the two, is a two-level “collaborative core”—the “binder” that connects doctors and researchers from varying specialties to meet in a variety of dynamic situations to accelerate medical discoveries—moving science from the bench to the bedside.
The GVI boasts a “hotel” comprised of 62 private patient rooms arranged into four nursing pods—each capable of independent operation, but flexible enough to work together with adjacent pods over the ebb and flow of patient volume. The “hotel” creates a more restive environment distinct from the active treatment areas.
The new building was designed to attract people to the collaborative core areas. The interior design is enlivened with creative lighting, focal points, bright colors and warm woods that counter play with the crisp neutrals of the building palette.
To emphasize the continuity between outside and inside and among groups of occupants, the curvilinear forms of the structure are reintroduced into the millwork and solid surfaces, accented through use of color. The perimeter of the building is designed to admit abundant natural daylight.
These architectural responses, combined with an approach akin to a concierge desk, provide the positive first and last impressions so vital to patient and family satisfaction.
Designed to handle 60,000 patient visits per year, GVI’s state-of-the-art Emergency Department features a spacious main waiting room, accommodating up to 90 people, with direct elevator access for immediate vertical transport of patients into procedure labs and operating rooms.
Located adjacent to the imaging department with CT scan technology, the ED features 53 private patient rooms in four separate pods, two dedicated, state-of-the-art diagnostic x-ray machines, overhead electronic files for safe patient handling and dedicated space with waiting rooms for behavioral health patients.
Location: Buffalo, New York
Architect: Cannon Design
Principal: Mehrdad Yazdani, Associate AIA
Civil Engineering: DiDonato Associates
Curtain Wall: Israel Berger
Landscape Architecture: Dean W. Gowen
General Contractor: Turner Construction Company
Area: 476500
Cost: $291,000,000
Year: 2012
Client: Kaleida Health and State University of New York at Buffalo