In 2016, the School of the Art Institute of Chicago (SAIC) explored the possibility of renovating their existing health and wellness department center. The center provided three distinct services: Counseling Services, the Disability and Learning Resource Center, and Health Services. JGMA was contracted to complete a master plan and conceptual design study which included an existing condition assessment. Working closely with the clinical staff, JGMA’s staff developed a forward-thinking program responding to their growing needs and conceptual planning within the limited space constraints. The major challenge for the school was providing both physical care and behavioral health services in a space they inherited and long ago out-grew. This initial involvement culminated with schematic renderings and plans which the school used for budget planning and gathering funding to carry out the renovation project in the future.
This led to the SAIC Wellness Center interior renovation project which was completed in the summer of 2019. Designed with the intention to be culturally inclusive and welcoming to a campus that serves a growing number of students with international and diverse backgrounds. As a result, the design features the creation of a warm and welcoming wellness environment through the combination of natural materials and soothing colors.
Being a vertical campus with limited space for expansion, the scope of work provided the JGMA team with a challenge of creating a comfortable student procession through a constrained amount of space. Subsequently, the plan relocates the public pathways to run adjacent to existing windows, allocating ample natural daylight to corridors, and giving students access to the views of downtown Chicago from the 16-floor high-rise building. At its entry, the lobby serves as a place of architectural wayfinding that offers both physical relief and acoustical solace through the introduction of bold elements in the form of sweeping acoustically rated colored ceilings and repurposed wood slat walls given as a gift from the Art Institute of Chicago.
These wood slat walls, which were originally used in the Ukiyo-e Painting the Floating World Exhibit that showcased spectacular holdings of Japanese prints, books, and drawings from the 17th to the 19th centuries, now found a new life as a repurposed material within the SAIC Wellness Center. Walls that not only came from an historical piece of the Art Institute’s past, but also one that now has a positive effect on the students who visit the Wellness Center.
These wood slats not only provide an embracing sense of entry but also a visual buffer in the limited space between the public elevators and the student waiting room. Offering a practical, sustainable, and budget friendly solution to a reoccurring privacy issue within the previous layout. Overall, the modernization stems from a commitment to ensure an improvement in the quality of space for all student health support services including Counseling Services, Health Services, and the Disability and Learning Resource Center.
