The demand for well-designed, high-quality, competitive healthcare environments has become increasingly important during the past few decades. Healthcare environments provide a unique set of design opportunities and constraints that distinguish them from other kinds of spaces.  They are unusually complex and must serve the needs of many different users, including patients, visitors, medical staff, and administrative personnel.  Perhaps that is why they are rarely assigned in academic architectural design studios—but they should be.  The American Institute of Architects (AIA)/Academy of Architecture for Health (AAH) encourages student participation in designing health care environments.   Students need to be exposed to the possibilities of healthcare design while in school, as it offers a window into a world of architectural practice where their work will always be in demand. Research is needed to identify and analyze approaches to healthcare design issues, and especially to assist designers in creating places and spaces that meet the complex needs of users. Several UIUC alumni have established successful careers with health care design firms.

Cannon Design of St. Louis, MO, is consistently ranked among the top healthcare design firms in the world.  Staff from Cannon Design will deliver a series of presentations to students about health care design to provide an overview of the field and to orient them to upcoming design projects.   They will participate in the development of project assignments and in interim and final design reviews

The University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign has selected your architectural firm to be among the finalists to design a new vision for the Psychological Services Center (PSC), a mental health agency operated by the UIUC Department of Psychology.  The PSC offers therapy, psychological assessments, and innovative programs for adults, adolescents, and families living and working in the surrounding community. It is one of the only facilities in the nation to combine programs in both clinical and community psychology,  a significant prototype in bridging the university and the community.  According to Rose Ann Miron, Assistant Chancellor, "The Psychological Services Center is an important component of UIUC community engagement and service.  As a training, research and service facility the PSC plays a key role in mental health service provision in Champaign County.  The proposal [for our design studio course] aptly describes the potential benefits to campus and community constituencies that might flow from a re-envisioning of the center."

Review the PSC website in detail to learn more about its mission, services, and staff. Our design must have a strong racial and cultural diversity component, as clients come from diverse backgrounds.  Most are low income.  Their struggles include school issues, juvenile delinquency, substance abuse, child and/or spousal abuse.

Our design program includes retail along street level, an outdoor and indoor healing garden, and a small amount of parking.  You and your team-mates will develop the design program in response your environment-behavior research.