CannonDesign Reframes The Medical Workplace

Northwestern Medicine Faculty Office Center in Chicago, a 20,000-square-foot, biophilic-informed oasis adjacent to the hospital, supplants a series of dated, siloed, and scattered offices. Conceived in concert with physicians and Blue Cottage (CannonDesign‘s in-house strategy consultancy), the amenity-rich hub reads more retreat than workplace: encompassing quiet rooms, collaboration zones, and meditation, massage, and fitness spaces, plus chef-prepared meals, amid a Zen landscape that fosters community and counters staff burnout. Upon arrival, the custom stone reception desk, hewn into a rocklike mass, anchors the lobby, beneath Ross Lovegrove’s pebble-esque Mercury pendant fixtures, while transparent frosted glass fronts an indoor birch-and-moss forest. Curving forms flow into the café/lounge, where trunklike lengths of oak partition seating areas, chromated spheres suggest water droplets, and a sculptural island stands on porcelain tile flooring. Beyond, work areas layer angular oak screens, Mater’s organic Liuku pendants, and meeting rooms enclosed by more frosted glass, their circulation guided by a perforated metal ceiling that yields a dappled daylight effect.