HGA completed the design for the Owensboro Health Regional Hospital located in Owensboro, Kentucky.

The 780,000-square-foot Owensboro Health Regional replacement hospital, on a 162-acre site, includes a nine-story 385-private bed tower, three-story diagnostic and treatment building, 30-bed transitional care unit, Interventional Platform, Emergency Department, Women’s Center, Heart Center, neuro-diagnostics Area and Outpatient Diagnostics Facility.

To deliver exceptional experiences that have real meaning to this Ohio River community, HGA introduced the practice of Experience Design, a discipline that focuses on the user experience expressing cultural relevance in design. The Ideal Patient Experience was defined in the pre-design phase, combined with the Owner’s vision to create a distinct, compassionate, calming and innovative campus. The resulting design features and elements support the human experience of staff, families, patients and surrounding community.

The building massing unifies distinct programmatic elements harmoniously. The three-story Diagnostic and Treatment building provides strong support for the undulating, figurative shape of the nine-story Bed Tower. The two buildings are unified by shared material palettes and connect at shared common spaces. The exterior uses simple forms and natural materials in harmony with the site. Glass is used sparingly to create emphasis on important areas, such as the south facade of the Bed Tower, with a glass curtain wall that illuminates the structure and reinforces the tower’s building mass.

The metaphor of the river, which informed the figurative shape of the undulating tower building, carries through the site with a landscaped river-like element which “disappears” under the building to re-emerge at the north garden as a focal seven-acre pond. The cultural significance of the river and its influence continues through the interiors through use of familiar colors and winding patterns in the lobby’s terrazzo floors, and the creation of healing environments that flow throughout the hospital with internal courtyards bringing light into the building and providing views that create calming distraction for patients, visitors and staff.

Architect: HGA
Design Team: Kurt Spiering, Mark Bultman, Paul Widlarz, Tim Scanley, Jes Skaug, Bryant Mosconi, Theresa Flewell, Kate Bautista, Michelle Scanley, Brent Peterson, Andrew Zimmer, Dave Janous, Megan Schmiedlin, Dave Boyd, Jesse Robinson, Bob Bonesho, Paul McGuire, Jeff Millmann, Kevin Pope, Cathy Hall, Ron Burns, Rob Docter, Steve Fenelon, Pao Yang, Andrew Atkins, Ryan Spiering, Jim Driscoll, Nick Allen, James Keller, Eric Wagner, Cheyenne Skenandore, Andrew Lasca, Chris Tank
General Contractor: Turner Construction
Photography: Halkin Mason Photography, Emanouil Spassov of HGA