CREJ

INSIDE R ecently, The Denver Hospice broke ground on the new Amy Davis Hospice Support Center, a two-story addition to The Denver Hospice’s inpatient care center in Lowry. The Denver Hospice is the region’s largest nonprofit provider of life- enhancing hospice and palliative care. MOA Architecture is designing the project and Fransen Pittman is serving as the general contractor. This project is an addition to The Denver Hospice’s Lowry Care Cen- ter – completed in 2012 and also designed by MOA – and will consist of a 28,000-square-foot, two-story support center with 28 below-grade parking spaces. The support cen- ter will house approximately 100 employees, who provide bereave- ment and admin- istrative services. The hospice’s administrative offices and grief center currently are located in Glendale, so the relocation of these services to the same site as the inpatient care cen- ter will offer a new convenience for patients and their families. While our first project for The Denver Hospice focused on the patient, this second project allowed us to focus on the support struc- ture for those patients, including the hospice staff and the patient’s loved ones. We kicked off the design process with the aim of uncovering the challenges of these users in the hospice environment. Serving Family Needs Bereavement therapy for fam- ily members and loved ones is a key service offered by The Denver Hospice. We worked closely with hospice counseling staff to better understand the bereavement servic- es they provide, the day-to-day use of their current spaces and their hopes for the new space. Based on these discussions, the new grief center will offer space for sensory and processing activi- ties for both children and adults, including arts and crafts as well as expressive music activities such as drumming. The spaces will be flex- ible in use, allowing counselors to conduct individual as well as group or family therapy. The grief center also will connect to an outdoor patio, designed in collaboration with Norris Design, that will provide loved ones a secluded and private place to grieve, screened from pub- The differences between Chicago and Denver are drawing a developer to town Compare & contrast A look at the emerging trends in health care in 2019 Bridging generations by designing educational spaces for all ages Trends Back to school PAGE 14 PAGE 17 Designing in service of the hospice support structure Please see Page 18 July 2019 Kasia Bulkowski, AIA, NCARB, WELL AP Architect, MOA Architecture PAGE 13 An exterior rendering of the new Amy Davis Hospice Support Center