Florida Hospital Orlando - Ginsburg Tower

Clouds - Florida Hospital Orlando - Ginsburg Tower

May 20, 2015. Clouds - Florida Hospital Orlando - Ginsburg Tower.

I've been giving a lot of thought lately to architecture in Orlando, particularly hospital architecture.

There are few places so deeply tied to life - and death - in our minds, yet so few hospitals in the world designed with a sense of place and dignity befitting coming into and going out of the world. The city of Orlando has incredible hospital architecture, including one of my favorites, Orlando Health's Winnie Palmer Hospital for Women and Babies, designed by Jonathan Bailey Associates.

Florida Hospital's 15-story Ginsburg Tower, designed by Hunton Brady and completed in 2008, is less striking from the outside than the orbs and cylinders of Winnie Palmer. Most photographs that you will see of Ginsburg do not do it justice. They are from the distance, but the building was designed to be viewed from below and within.  The angle shown above, taken from the banks of Lake Estelle in the College Park community, shows its beautiful, embracing curves.

The real beauty of this tower is in its patient rooms, though, which are elegant, dignified, and spacious. Windows that reflect clouds from the outside let in a gorgeous view of Lake Estelle from the patient rooms on the inside. The rooms have dedicated family areas so that patients, loved ones, and clinical staff all have the room that they need.

This past year marked the passing of designer and architect Michael Graves, known in Orlando for his Swan and Dolphin hotels at Walt Disney World. Confined to a wheelchair later in life, Graves switched his attention to patient-centric healthcare design. How fitting that the hospital facilities in the Orlando area are among the standard-setters in thoughtful design.

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