Project Description
The 34,000 square-foot Willson Hospice House is a welcoming, approachable building that conveys its connectedness to the south Georgia community it serves. Warm, familiar materials like stained cedar, pine, Douglas-fir, and cork impart texture and natural color, and help to create an inviting environment. Extensive birch millwork and panelling in patient rooms disguise medical outlets and switches, making the spaces home-like instead of clinical. The design emphasizes transparency, incorporating views into the heavily treed landscape wherever possible. Major gathering rooms feature high, exposed fir plank ceilings, glulam beams, and tall wood-and-window walls function as lanterns, glowing at dawn and dusk. The LEED project’s ambitious sustainability goals were achieved with the help of renewable and recyclable wood structural and finish materials. Willson Hospice was also the first healthcare facility in the world to receive Audubon International’s Signature Silver Sanctuary designation.