This week, CannonDesign rolled out renderings of a new $815 million, 575,000-square-foot cancer treatment facility located on the University of Chicago’s historic South Side campus. The forthcoming University of Chicago (UC) Medicine Cancer Pavilion designed by CannonDesign champions a “community-centered approach to cutting-edge cancer care,” according to a project description by the architects.
Today, a team of 200 professionals employed by UC Medicine are scattered throughout five buildings in Hyde Park, Chicago. The medical center currently registers 200,000 outpatient visits per year and 5,000 inpatient admissions. The new UC Medicine Cancer Pavilion will provide a centralized location for UC Medicine’s cancer operations. The project is set to be one of only two National Cancer Institute–designated comprehensive cancer centers in the state of Illinois.
In South Side Chicago, the incidence of cancer is projected to increase by 19 percent in the next decade. This number dwarfs projections for more affluent Chicago areas: In the five counties surrounding the city’s municipal borders, cancer rates are expected to rise by 9 percent collectively. UC Medicine’s Cancer Pavilion is designed to address this racial and economic disparity. The complex marks Chicago’s first freestanding cancer treatment center with inpatient and outpatient services “alongside a wide swath of community prevention and education services,” according to the architects.
“This isn’t about incremental change,” said Abbie Clary, co-director of CannonDesign’s Health Practice, in a press statement. “It’s about taking an extraordinary step toward eradicating cancer and creating new opportunities for the way we treat the disease in Chicago and globally.”
Upon completion, the UC Medicine Cancer Pavilion will host 80 inpatient beds; 64 of which will be medical-surgical beds while the other 16 are intensive care units. The pavilion will have 90 consultation and outpatient exam rooms as well as a dedicated urgent care clinic for immunocompromised cancer patients. It will also include private infusion bays grouped by cancer type for patient comfort and privacy. To forge connections with the community, the new building will have public amenities such as a cafe, wellness and meeting spaces, a pocket garden, public art, and educational opportunities; providing a new ‘town square’ for Hyde Park.
From certain angles, the new complex appears in renderings as perhaps a nod to Mies van der Rohe’s 1921 Friedrichstrasse Tower. Its undulating curtain wall ebbs and flows to break up the facade for what is a highly-regulated program.
Architects at CannonDesign and the firm’s inhouse consultancy Blue Cottage of CannonDesign collaborated with Yazdani Studio, another design laboratory internal to CannonDesign, on the “transformative space that will boldly redefine how cancer is researched, diagnosed, treated, and ultimately prevented.” According to the designers, the new pavilion will offer a wide range of services for the lauded institution that will “reimagine the entire spectrum of cancer and patient care, from first visit to treatment to survivorship.”
Construction is set for completion in spring 2027.
CannonDesign will present UC Medicine Cancer Pavilion at the upcoming Facades+ event in Chicago on October 6. Follow this link to register.
