A unique health care campus utilizing environmentally friendly design and construction, UW Health at The American Center is a universal care center and wellness facility. It features facilities and services for both inpatient and outpatient care with a strong emphasis on wellness and preventative care. These core services of the facility translated directly into the design for the42-acre site which includes extensive walking paths, sport courts, a sand pit, open lawn areas and purposefully integrated topographic grade changes for physical therapy activities. Semi-private courtyards and intimate garden spaces are distributed throughout the site for inpatient, visitor and staff wellness.
A 39,000 square foot green roof was designed as an integral part of the facility’s user experience and highlights the client’s commitment to sustainable design and construction. The roofs were designed to serve as an extension of the site; an intensive green roof adjacent to the hospital’s cafeteria provides a looped path, seating, a shade structure and lush plantings. Nearby, several extensive green roofs utilize different colored plant palettes and pavement materials to create a flowing design that can be enjoyed by people in the adjacent hospital tower. Saiki Design worked with a diverse and integrated project team of architects, specialty MEP consultants, engineers and contractors to utilize harvested stormwater for irrigating green roof planting areas.
Saiki Design worked in tandem with the landscape architectural team at Flad to design the site for the campus and define an elegant palette of plants and exterior materials. Saiki Design was subsequently responsible for designing and detailing the intensive and extensive green roofs, formulating the planting design for the site perimeter, designing and specifying a series of interconnected rain gardens and bioretention areas, and detailing and specifying the specialty sport court, synthetic turf and sand pit rehabilitation areas.
UW Health at The American Center was designed to LEED-NC Silver standards and received an Award of Excellence for Design from the Wisconsin Chapter of the American Society for Landscape Architects and a Commercial Design Award from In Business Magazine.
