Lambeth House Wellness & Nursing Center

This new 3-level wellness and nursing center for Lambeth House, a retirement community in New Orleans’ University neighborhood, adjoins an existing 12 story residential tower and features 56 private, skilled nursing rooms, each with its own bath. Two 14-bed wings are joined on each of the upper two floors to a shared community center that houses living, dining and activity rooms with a nurse’s station and offices at its core.

The ground level, which supports the active members of the community, contains a spa, a non-denominational chapel, an art room, a café, fitness and exercise facilities, and locker rooms. A 75 ft long, three lane salt pool is housed in a separate one-story structure that is connected to the Center by a meditation garden. The challenge here was designing a long narrow building mandated by the site, with good daylighting and views for the residents, on a north-south axis in New Orleans’ punishingly hot climate. The building’s principal facades had to face due east and west which are difficult exposures for living spaces.

Picking up on the proportions of nineteenth century double-galleried New Orleans houses, a series of zinc-clad bays or “shields” were cantilevered off the upper two resident floors allowing for small picture windows facing the hot east and west exposures while opening up the resident rooms to larger expanses of glass to the north and south. These elements form important “in between” spaces and function as a bay window for the residents, providing diagonal views that borrow space for each resident room. This device also allows for an activity nook while imparting the sense of being outside the building and part of the larger community.

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