Design excellence in the service of public health: How the City of New York is transforming their historic free public health centers to increase HIV/STD screening, education and treatment in medically underserved neighborhoods

The City of New York has recently adopted Take Care New York, its first ever comprehensive public health policy to reduce the incidence of disease and health disparities citywide. One of the ten Take Care New York goals is to stop the spread of HIV through increased screening and education. A key strategy for achieving this goal is the transformation of the city's numerous historic WPA-era neighborhood health clinics into “lighthouses to the community”, welcoming and reassuring state-of-the-art STD clinic facilities that will enable the city to more effectively encourage community use of the free testing and counseling services, particularly in medically under served areas. This presentation will discuss how the architect, selected through Mayor Bloomberg's innovative Design Excellence Initiative, worked with administrative and clinical staff of the NYC Department of Health and Mental Hygiene to transform free public clinics, that were originally designed to address the urban health challenges of TB, syphilis and infant mortality, into engaging, welcoming and highly efficient state-of-the-art STD screening and treatment facilities. The presentation will focus on the key challenges and lessons learned on how the design and organization of spaces, the circulation plan, and materials, finishes and furnishings can be used to create reassuring and welcoming non-institutional environments that uniquely engage the communities that they serve. The presentation will also discuss how the city is standardizing the design and controlling the cost of future clinic renovations through their newly adopted “Guidelines for the Design and Construction of Ambulatory Clinics”.