Alda Ly Architecture has designed the flagship location of HealthQuarters, an independent medical practice, located in New York City, New York.

HealthQuarters collaborated with the Mount Sinai Health System and independent medical and wellness practitioners to bring a full range of preventive health services under one roof, where a patient can receive everything from medical diagnoses and recovery care to dental alignments and acupuncture. In response, ALA has transformed a 15,000-square-foot loft spanning three floors in NoHo, Manhattan into a comforting, approachable, and intuitive network of care environments, each designed with a honed sensitivity to distinct programs and their users. The HealthQuarters NoHo flagship will serve as a blueprint for future HealthQuarters locations.

In the past, ALA has brought their expertise to creating innovative healthcare and wellness spaces for clients like Parsley Health, where optimizing patient experience drives the design process. The studio’s concept for HealthQuarters continues this pursuit, while expanding it to encompass a more holistic healthcare experience.

ALA’s primary goal for HealthQuarters’ flagship location is to bring the concept of care to user experience at every scale. From layout and circulation to waiting lounges, x-ray rooms, and coat hooks, all choices were driven by biophilic design—a set of strategies that draw from nature to enhance people’s mood and cognitive performance. HealthQuarters design tenets of compassion, clarity, expertise, integrity, and courage also informed the space throughout.

Across the flagship space, an overarching atmosphere of brightness, openness, and navigability—or clarity—reflects HealthQuarters’ mission to empower people with choices on their healthcare journey. The first floor entryway and adjacent welcoming lounge were envisioned as a luminous, cozy foyer that visitors could duck into during a gloomy Manhattan downpour. This area sets the tone for the large, multifaceted space that spreads across three floors of the historic Noho building, originally built in 1900. Common areas and circulation corridors are bright and airy, clad in warm materials and hues: custom white oak millwork with soft, curving edges; alabaster-toned walls; terrazzo tabletops; and blush, terra cotta, and ocean-blue accents. More intimate, private nooks and care rooms extend off these areas, and are filled with deeper hues and more enveloping forms. While the first floor is expansive, complete with very high ceilings, ALA’s organization and appointment of the space makes it feel intimate, welcoming, and warm in stark contrast to more traditional healthcare offices.

Throughout, ALA employs niches, frames, and thresholds to define different uses within open spaces, rather than sequestering them with walls or other more rigid physical barriers. For instance, at a medium scale, slatted, half-arched metal screens distinguish different programs in the welcome lounge, while still allowing for long views across the plant-filled room. On a larger scale, double-height arches indicate transitions from one program to the next—for instance, from the welcome lounge to the corridor, or from the exam wing to the wellness and recovery suite. These thresholds create a dynamic experiential journey through the space that acts as a kind of “spine” connecting the varied service offerings, including general medicine, mental health, dentistry, ophthalmology, acupuncture and massage, nutrition, physical therapy, and more.

At the individual scale, modular furniture was conceived around the semi-circle—a welcoming, inclusive shape that allows for seating on the concave side and separation on the convex side. All seating placed centrally in a room was designed with a back, to maximize comfort and minimize any feelings of vulnerability. Additionally, custom planters were integrated into a selection of the modular furniture, bringing in another biophilic element. All furniture is upholstered in bleach-cleanable, wipe-clean fabrics for durability, cleanliness, and easy maintenance. Across the flagship, nearly all of the millwork is custom and designed by ALA as a modular system that can flex and be deployed in a number of ways as HealthQuarters grows.

Design: Alda Ly Architecture
Design Team: Alda Ly, Marissa Feddema, Tania Chau, Talitha Liu, Kolby Forbes
Architect of Record: CallisonRTKL
Contractor: BH Design Group
Photography: Nicole Franzen