Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, Chestnut Hill Receives 2021 IIDA NE Health and Wellness Award

We are pleased to announce that Dana-Farber Cancer Institute Chestnut Hill is the recipient of the 2021 IIDA NE Health and Wellness Award. This award celebrates projects that promote health and well-being and consider physical, mental and emotional effects on building occupants.

Dana-Farber Cancer Institute’s sole mission is defeating cancer. With a team-based approach centered on the patient, they provide full-service outpatient cancer diagnosis and treatment. The Chestnut Hill project is their largest expansion to date, bringing all facets of their adult clinical care practice to a more accessible Metro West location, in a creative adaptive reuse of this former retail site. The team’s challenge: create both a satellite of the main Longwood campus and a distinct, welcoming destination.

Three central themes, shelter, light and connectivity, guided the team and owner throughout the process, reinforcing these concepts to ensure patient and staff wellbeing. A fundamentally patient focused facility, it is an antidote to the most stressful and challenging of life experiences. A series of tactile, natural elements including wood benches, walls and soffit panels bring a coherence to the project while visually and physically embracing occupants.

Daylight guides throughout: the atrium unifies and animates waiting and circulation areas, with iconic new skylight enclosures casting diffuse and dappled shadows. Examination and treatment pods radiate outward, framing orienting views of nature. The project strengthens the Institute’s team-based approach; for example, the perimeter Provider workspaces link “off-stage” collaborative staff zones, enabling a one-day, one-location patient visit.