Location: Manhattan, Kansas
Client: N/A
Cost: N/A
The Manhattan Hospice House, aptly named "_hospice.house.untitled" was the thesis project of Adam to complete his M.Arch degree at Kansas State University. Set forth tryign to redefine what a hospice house is, and could be, when set into a semi-urban context following an immense amount of group research about the history of hospice, their houses, and their residents. The site is a standard block in the city of Manhattan, Kansas surrounded by a Catholic elementary school, a Catholic church, a bed and breakfast, and a mass of 'historical' residential properties (relative to the area). This context added to the complexity of the problem. In a country that is terrified by the idea of death, how do we reintroduce the idea of death into society in an honorable way. End of life is not something that should be feared, but something that can embraced.
The design utilizes a human-scale timber skeleton with one stone volume, giving a sense of permanence to the facility. The skeleton is infilled with pre-manufactured modular pods as support spaces and patient suites allowing for an interior public street with a sense of place, identity, and individuality. The support pods were placed square to the frame on the north side, mimicing the residential scale of the opposing street elevation. The patient suites however are rotated within the skeleton creating different identities for each alcove and pod. This allows each resident's suite to became a place instead of just a number along a corridor. These two sets of pods are separated by a large storage wall holding uplighting and bearing the main valley of the butterfly roof.
The project received recognition as a finalist for the Heintzelman Award for outstanding work in the 5th year and was later submitted to the 2010 Architects for Health competition in London.
The final project book is available in a PDF format here. (11.5MB)