Esperanza Wellness Campus

Esperanza envisions a world where community residents are served regardless of immigration status, race/ethnicity, income or insurance, and are able to realize their full potential through optimum health. Therefore, this new facility materializes the client’s mission and vision. Understanding that health is a combination of physical, mental and spiritual balance, the new building focuses on creating spaces for healing and wholeness.

Esperanza resolves a significant challenge in the wellness typology. Too often these building types are disregarded in minority communities and result in facilities that lack resources and dignity. The result is a contemporary community health center providing critical services that this southwest area of Chicago has lacked.

The neighborhood was suffering a primary-health-care desert before Esperanza Wellness Campus was built. It is the building that this community needs to heal, flourish and feel supported. By teaming up with local specialty care and community-based organizations, the new facility houses comprehensive healthcare and utilizes forward-thinking design to attract and unite the surrounding community.

The new building stands as a beacon of hope and health to the Brighton Park community. It transforms a once blighted brownfield lot into a canvas of orange prismatic color-shifting panels, perforated by a pattern of rhomboid windows all above the continuous glazing ringing the ground floor entries. Inside, visitors find Mujeres Latinas En Accion (MLEA) services, a community pharmacy, a large multi-purpose room, cooking classes, and educational activities that promote health.

In 2015, EHC identified that many of their patients had been traveling an extensive distance in order to be see their doctors. They quickly determined that the neighborhoods of Brighton Park, Gage Park and Back Of The Yards were suffering as a primary-health-care desert. As such, Esperanza identified a site along 47th street and began the journey to transform the available health care within these communities. 

The building stands at the intersection of 47th Street and California Avenue. An unyielding concrete slab that stretched for an entire city block has been transformed into a new clinic with outdoor walking and community garden spaces that offer healing properties well before entering the building. The ground floor has been designed to draw visitors into the building, blurring interior and exterior. This flowing and open lobby plan, at the site's predominant corner, is the central and vibrant hub of the facility.  

The spray of windows that decorate the building on the outside prove functional inside these exam rooms. Relatively small and high up, the windows let in natural light without compromising patient privacy.

Connecting the building’s two floors is the main circulating staircase. As an architectural centerpiece, it uses color and visual movement to lead patients from the entry lobby up to the second floor: warm and expressive colors weave into the spatial design to create intuitive wayfinding for patients and visitors. The open work areas for medical caregivers and providers are designed with large walls of glazing to harvest natural light while visually connecting to the people and neighborhood of Brighton Park. 

The changes from initial design to completion are rather dramatic. The original project included a significant partner who, when the project was at the permitting stage, had to drop out for financial reasons. When the project re-initiated, the total area decreased, going from three stories to two. A campus master plan envisions future wellness components in later phases.

Email interview conducted by John Hill.

• Exterior metal panel: ACM (Aluminum Composite Panel) Alucobond "Cupral Spectra" & silver metallic finishes (installed by Tushcall Engineering)
• Curtainwall system and windows: Tubelite 200 Series
• Interior Paint: Sherwin Williams (Orange)
• Flooring finishes manufacturer: Shaw Contract