The Oxygen Pavilion

Project Description

The challenge of this project was to create a healing center for lung cancer patients next to the highly public site of Martin Luther King’s National Historic Park. Previously, the site suffered from a lack of connection from the urban context around it. The solution to the urban problem was not to create another building that takes away the users from the urban environment, but to create a universal pavilion that engages the community on the urban scale, while still creating privacy for the patients to heal internally. The Oxygen Pavilion creates external public spaces including areas of rest and shade for the children of Hope Hill, elders of the neighboring nursing home, and the tourists of the MLK Park, and provides educational spaces that teach the public on the pavilion’s environmental systems.

To enhance the healing process for the individual, internally, the Oxygen Pavilion creates an ambiguous interior and exterior experience. By bringing internal clean breathable courtyards, it allows the patients to feel they are away from the city, and be one with nature. These clean breathable courtyards have air filtering plants to provide clean fresh air for the patient. The Oxygen Pavilion utilizes the environment by housing rainwater collection from the site, maximizing day-lighting opportunities, providing clean air zones created purely from natural elements brought within, and creating a community environmental learning zone to educate the public on the building’s environmental systems.

The program of the project includes consulting healing rooms, first aid room, staff offices, service areas, and a public cafe.