Architecture Firm Francis Cauffman Honored with Vista Award for New Construction

Architecture firm Francis Cauffman has received the 2010 Vista Award for new construction, which recognizes excellence in teamwork in the design and construction of healthcare facilities.

New York, NY — March 17 — Architecture firm Francis Cauffman and its design team have been honored with a 2010 Vista Award, the American Society for Healthcare Engineering (ASHE) announced today. The award, in the category of new construction, recognizes Francis Cauffman and its team of consultants that designed and built the Critical Care Building at Geisinger Wyoming Valley Medical Center in Wilkes-Barre, PA. The Vista awards are co-sponsored by ASHE, the American Hospital Association (AHA), and the American Institute of Architects Academy of Architecture for Health (AIA/AAH).


Established in 1993, the Vista Awards program recognizes excellence in design and construction teamwork. Dozens of projects were submitted from around the country this year. Winning healthcare facilities are selected on the basis of efficiency, flexibility, and productivity, as well as for the positive impact they make on their communities. Awards are given for each of the following categories: new construction, renovation, and infrastructure.

“The Vista Award is unique in that it recognizes the team that united to work together with the ultimate goal of designing and developing a healing environment. By sharing a vision and working together, team members were able to overcome the challenges that presented themselves along the way,” said Dana Swenson, PE, MBA, Senior Vice President and Chief Facilities Officer, UMass Memorial Health Care and chair of the 2010 Vista Awards Task Force. “The team from Geisinger clearly worked together and the real people to benefit from their hard work are the people of Wilkes-Barre who will use and work at the facility.”

“Francis Cauffman is thrilled to be the recipient of the 2010 Vista Award for new construction,” said James Crispino, AIA, president of Francis Cauffman. “These national awards represent the highest honor a healthcare project team can receive, and emphasize the value of a team approach to design and construction. We are proud to have our work honored in this way.”

The CCB is one of the “centers of excellence” for specialty care earmarked by Francis Cauffman after the firm was hired to design the master plan for the Geisinger Wyoming Valley campus in 2000. With Level II trauma accreditation and LEED Silver certification, the 178,000-sq building is the region’s most modern, sustainable, and technically advanced trauma center. The CCB, with a construction cost of $40.8M, increased the campus by 50 percent and added considerably to its capacity. It houses an expanded 32-bed emergency department, a helipad, 12 high-tech surgical suites with robotics, and a 24-bed intensive care unit.

The Vista program looks at the project teams’ actual results in addition to their guiding concepts. Instead of relying largely on project plans for making judgments, the program also looks for evidence that the finished facility does an outstanding job of serving the needs of its patients and employees. At Geisinger, the CCB is the first critical care center in the area to accommodate neurosurgical care, brain and spinal trauma injuries and has already had a major impact on the hospital’s capacity and income, adding 20,000 visits to the expanded emergency department alone, for a total of 45,000-50,000 per year.

In addition to Francis Cauffman, which served as the CCB’s architect, the Vista Award recognizes the members of the design and construction team that collaborated on the award submission. These include: Geisinger Health System of Danville, PA (owner); Alvin H. Butz, Inc. of Allentown, PA (construction manager); Ram-Tech Engineers of Philadelphia, PA (MEP engineer); and Borton-Lawson of Wilkes-Barre, PA (landscape architect).

About Francis Cauffman

Francis Cauffman, an award-winning architecture firm with offices in New York, Philadelphia, and Baltimore, has supported its clients since 1954 with innovative architecture, planning, and interior design services. The practice is recognized for being on the leading edge of new investigations in healthcare, academic research and teaching, corporate research, corporate and advanced technology, and government and justice planning and design. Francis Cauffman has a staff of 130 architects, planners, and interior designers and is active in 20 states and 3 countries. Francis Cauffman’s clients include Columbia University Medical Center, Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center, Johns Hopkins, and the University of Pennsylvania Medical Center.

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Posted March 17, 2010

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