Dana-Farber Cancer Center | 1 Joslin Place | Longwood

If these buildings didn't overhang the sidewalk, they might not end up being so imposing. The one next to this at Longwood Ave causes me so much anxiety being near it. Not that it's gonna fall over or anything, bit it just gives me "bursting at the seems" energy.
 
Justbuildit said:
Payette is pretty good at bringing high quality designs. Really hoping they and Morris Adjmi get some more commissions in Boston and dislodge Elkus Manfredi's death grip on so much of the region (even if they've stepped it up a bit recently).
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Payette did the recent Klarmon Building at BIDMC and I suspect this will be more of the same. Which is good hospital design. Their lab stuff at NU is really outstanding but I don't think hospitals lend themselves to the exuberant architecture budget.
 
MjolnirMan said:
Nice to see the plans for the multiple extensions of the skybridge network - it makes a huge quality of life difference for patients and employees. Between the Brigham "Pike" and the Farber 3rd floor, I think you'll be able to walk from one end of Francis Street to the other entirely indoors.
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I would love to see a map of the entire gerbil tube and connecting hallways network. I really think that concept is quite cool, just the way you can walk from Back Bay Station to Hynes Convention Center without ever going outside.
 
Since the tubes span institutions and are usually behind security desks, I don't know if a fully contiguous map exists. And there are a few smaller networks that require a quick pop outside and the right credentials to reenter.

Here's a map of Brigham's "Pike" corridor; you can enter at the Peter Bent Brigham building and walk all the way to their newest Hale building on the same grade:
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Over on the top left you can see "3rd-Floor Bridge to Dana-Farber"; this is just a staircase up from the BWH Pike and connects to Dana-Farber's hallway in the bottom-right here:
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Via the Jimmy Fund building, you can also enter Children's and go down a level to walk across the newest Longwood gerbil tube to their parking garage next to HMS's Vanderbilt Hall. This BCH map is rotated 180 degrees from the two above (orient via Children's Way and Binney Street; DFCI Jimmy Fund is the blank spot in the top right):
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Here's BIDMC rotated 90 degrees (one way or another) to the other maps. DFCI is the blank block in the lower left and will eventually be connected to the West campus (and by extension so will BWH) via this thread's building:
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There used to be a route via BWH to HMS via the Shattuck skybridge and then into the quad hall/tunnels, but I believe that skybridge was sealed off, leaving the quad an isolated network. I'm not sure if you can go from HMS to HSPH via the parking garage or not.

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I'm an EMT, and we once had a call to pick someone up from somewhere in the HMS complex and take them literally across the street to BI or BWH (I forgot which one). For legal reasons, they could not have the patient walk over. If there had been a bridge, that whole situation would have been so much easier/cheaper for everybody involved.
 
Arenacale said:
Fascinating stuff, Mjolnir! Longwood could be such a model for patient-centered design if they could get all 4 hospitals connected so patients wouldn't need to go outside.
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For the trio of Farber/Brigham/Children's, it works extraordinarily well and reflects that they are all very practically interconnected - since Farber doesn't (currently) have their own clinical staff, you have pediatric cancer patients and practitioners flowing back and forth to BCH and the same thing for the Farber clinical beds located in Brigham. From the cancer angle, they all kind of function as one hospital.

I know from an urbanism perspective, gerbil tubes are frowned upon, but for this neighborhood it really does make sense. Besides the legal and environmental exposure angle for patients, and convenience for physicians, it is fantastic for staff transferring equipment and samples (clinical or research) vs. trying to navigate curb cuts and stoplights. If you could get a direct connection to a hospital lobby from a T station, now that would really be something. The sheer number of people and vehicles (including ambulances) have made the whole street level a total mess for decades, particularly around rush hours.
 
MjolnirMan said:
For the trio of Farber/Brigham/Children's, it works extraordinarily well and reflects that they are all very practically interconnected - since Farber doesn't (currently) have their own clinical staff, you have pediatric cancer patients and practitioners flowing back and forth to BCH and the same thing for the Farber clinical beds located in Brigham. From the cancer angle, they all kind of function as one hospital.

I know from an urbanism perspective, gerbil tubes are frowned upon, but for this neighborhood it really does make sense. Besides the legal and environmental exposure angle for patients, and convenience for physicians, it is fantastic for staff transferring equipment and samples (clinical or research) vs. trying to navigate curb cuts and stoplights. If you could get a direct connection to a hospital lobby from a T station, now that would really be something. The sheer number of people and vehicles (including ambulances) have made the whole street level a total mess for decades, particularly around rush hours.
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That's a great point about the volume of people in this area. I don't think additional gerbil tubes here would make the street level any less vibrant or chaotic. For one, the bulk of the traffic is people coming in from out of town for care, and second, most of the lunch places, etc., still require actually going out onto street level to visit them. I like the direct T connection idea, but that's a much bigger thing.

Maybe it's time for a "Crazy Longwood Ideas" thread in the Design a Better Boston forum...
 
Arenacale said:
Maybe it's time for a "Crazy Longwood Ideas" thread in the Design a Better Boston forum...
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I know I've seen the idea in another thread, but I personally think Longwood would be the perfect location for a Miami style people mover. It would serve as a circulator within the hospital zone, and then an express connection to Ruggles for broader connectivity. It would be above street level, with direct access to various hospital and lab buildings. An enhanced gerbil tube system would provide pedestrian connections to the other buildings.
 
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