Experience Healing Nature in This Canadian Health Center

On the third floor of Telus Sky, a 60-story, mixed-use tower in Calgary, Canada, Gensler Seattle has transformed 16,000 square feet into the Telus Health Care Centre, which separates itself from the typically sterile medical environment by integrating hospitality notes with clinical efficiency. “Our client sought to get outside the standard, to create something inspiring and bold,” senior associate and studio director Tessa Levine-Sauerhoff recalls.

To wit, upon arrival to the two-story site, visitors are welcomed by a wall of oak-veneered slats housing a luminous screen that displays gentle rhythms of digital biophilia. Nearby, the visualization hub, where four additional screens explain medical procedures and provide personalized health data, features a constellation of colorful Bocci pendant globes, Alfredo Häberli’s Dado modular seating upholstered in coordinating hues, and oak floor planks. Patient pods and MRI and ultrasound/DEXA rooms employ “smart ambiance”: The lighting, temperature, music, and scent can be personalized to patient preference to help comfort. Projections on curved walls or screens arcing down from the ceiling immerse them in such soothing settings as underwater seascapes, forests, and the Northern Lights. Throughout, woven-vinyl flooring and carpet tile maintain warmth while ensuring cleanability.

TESSA LEVINE-SAUERHOFF; MARIANNE STARKE; KRYSTIAN GARDULA; STEVE WOODS; DAICHI YAMAGUCHI; MICHAEL SCHUR.