The Design-Build Institute of America’s (DBIA) annual conference and expo is one of the most educational and dynamic events to attend each year. I had the great fortune of joining contacts and colleagues at this year’s event in New Orleans. Making this year’s DBIA Expo especially exciting, the event marked the 25th anniversary of the DBIA’s founding – a moment when select AEC industry leaders came together to advance design-build as a successful project delivery platform. For those unfamiliar, the DBIA conference is an event that unites AEC professionals, building owners, leaders in design-build delivery, and relative newcomers to share the latest trends, ideas and best practices that can fuel both…

The inaugural Innovation Accelerated By Design event hosted by CannonDesign’s Los Angeles office explored the role of design in spurring innovation. Last Thursday, more than 100 designers, educators, health and business leaders and innovators came together to hear leaders from Kaiser Permanente, Showtime and University of Utah share thoughts on how design can fuel innovation. Hosted at the Herman Miller Showroom, Innovation Accelerated By Design welcomed inspiring presentations, sparked interesting dialogue, and offered exciting peeks into the future of design. The event featured a series of TED-style presentations followed by a panel discussion moderated by CannonDesign’s Director of Strategy, Swapna Sathyan. Starting with this inaugural event, our team is excited…

It has been an exciting few months for Pratt Institute and the new Emerson Hall project, set to open in Fall 2019. The project celebrated its “Topping Out” with the completion of the tenth floor this August. Several of our team members were on hand to mark the event. Designed collaboratively by our team, hMa Architects and Pratt Institute, Emerson Hall creates important opportunities for first-year students’ social and intellectual development and promotes a community of invention and collaboration critical to Pratt’s academic mission. More than just a physical object, the building will be a home and nurturing environment where students learn, develop, grow and engage. Equipped with state-of-the-art technology…

While the major shift from inpatient to ambulatory care is allowing healthcare systems to remain at the forefront of medicine, it also creates significant challenges with respect to reimbursement, revenue, and patient volume. Exacerbating those challenges, there isn’t a “one size fits all” ambulatory strategy. Just as there is no single type of consumer, there is no single right or highest use of an ambulatory facility. Every patient is unique in how they want to interact with a health institution. And technology, digital solutions, experience, and patient expectations all play a role in their interactions. In order to build a successful ambulatory strategy, health systems need to approach ambulatory care…

Rising 22 stories high and four floors below ground, the new Centre hospitalier de l’Université de Montréal (CHUM) is the largest hospital in Quebec and contains one of the largest cancer treatment centers in Canada. The extensive size and scope of the cancer treatment center is designed to respond to the increasing demand for cancer services in Montreal, Quebec, and across Northeast Canada and the Maritimes. While the building design and its size are unique and impressive on their own, the way care is delivered within the cancer center, and the breakthroughs in research, are also hallmarks of the cancer care philosophy at CHUM. We’ve highlighted three ways CHUM is…

UC San Diego Health’s Jacobs Medical Center is a visionary healthcare building that functions as three hospitals – housing centers for women’s and infants, cancer care and specialty surgery – in one 10-story building. The building has been widely recognized for its patient-focused design, with media coverage from CNN, Architect’s Newspaper and Dezeen while winning both a Fast Company World Changing Idea award and the AIA National Healthcare Design Award in 2017. While these accomplishments celebrate the design and key features of the medical center, we wanted to call special attention to specific spaces in the hospital focused on cancer care. In Jacobs, floors four through six are home to…

With the arrival of fall’s changing colors and cooler temps across the U.S., we thought it would be good to look back at one of our favorite days of summer 2018: the AIA Day of Service on June 23. With the National AIA Conference in Manhattan this year, AIA New York leveraged the final day of the expo to encourage visiting and N.Y.-based architects to give back to diverse communities in need and our team was proud to take part. A few highlights from that great day: Widespread Impact–Volunteers worked on various service projects for non-profit organizations across the city, from Sunset Park to Chelsea, Harlem to Washington Heights, to…

In July, CannonDesign collaborated with Construction Management Partners (CMP), diversity consultant for the BJC HealthCare Diversity & Inclusion Program, to host a Shadow Day for several local high school students from various districts in St. Louis, including the Hazelwood and Fort Zumwalt School Districts. The objective was to provide students who had interest in studying architecture and engineering, and offer an upfront glance inside a professional AEC office environment. CannonDesign is a BJC HealthCare Toolbox Architect.   This was the first Shadow Day of its kind under a collaboration between Cannon and CMP as part of the BJC program; CannonDesign is a BJC HealthCare Toolbox Architect. In 2013, BJC HealthCare adopted…

In 2006, CannonDesign saw a rare opportunity for its St. Louis office in one of the city’s signature buildings: a vacant steam-heat power plant built in 1928 as part of the city’s post-World’s Fair economic re-development efforts. Ten years later, after a major redesign and adaptive re-use process that gutted its interior and created a new-meets-old design concept, the Power House is still generating positive energy for its occupants — our St. Louis headquarters — its neighborhood, and its city. We celebrate its first decade with a look back at its history and impact. When built, the Power House powered a dozen downtown city buildings, including City Hall, the Kiel Opera House, and…

John Jennings’ life is busy. As a project manager for our Boston team, he spends his days guiding important efforts like Nantucket Cottage Hospital, Yale University’s Sterling Chemistry Lab Renovation and renovating residence halls at Boston College while also writing thought leadership for local publications. In the evenings, on weekends, and 24-7-365 really, he’s a devoted husband and father – always trying to carve out time to help his community. “Even as life has become more wonderfully busy with new job responsibilities and children, it’s important to me and my family that we stay connected with the community and give back,” Jennings explains. “I realized that in order to manage…