Food and Health Center

EOA was asked to provide a proposal for the renovation of a popular neighborhood supermarket along with a new health care center associated with a local hospital. EOA restructured the program to integrate the two facilities more directly to create a more sustainable and interdependent health and community environment. The supermarket was renovated and updated by opening the building up to a shared community plaza and adding a rooftop farm. The health clinic, comprised of administrative offices and facilities for family medicine, OB-GYN and pediatric care was split into separate yet connected buildings to create a more residential scale and to disperse the parking in a more environmentally friendly way. Bridging the two programs is an aquaponic farm that serves to provide an educational component, along with the rooftop farm, for both young students in the area and out-patients at the health clinic. The food produced by both agricultural programs is used in the café on the plaza, sold at the supermarket and used in the supermarket teaching kitchen that opens on to the community space. The goal in linking the 40,000 square foot Supermarket with the new 20,000 square foot Healthcare Clinic is to reduce health disparities in the neighborhood by bringing together nutritional counseling, cooking classes, access to healthy food and preventative health services in a dynamic neighborhood setting.