DESIGN PROPOSAL
Clinical trials, as a whole, remain unfamiliar to a majority of the population. And when they are presented, the entire concept seems to focus primarily on numbers rather than the patient’s health. While these numbers are important, it fails to take into account the other dimensions of their life and the impact they hold. Ginkgo Pharmacy is built on the principle of providing holistic healthcare for all and is reflected throughout the design of the building and its functions within. We believe that considering all aspects of a person’s life is essential to providing proper care and building trust.
Clinical trials are essential in getting new treatments to market safely; however, current methods of participant recruitment leave out marginalized communities, which means that trials are not reflective of the population. Ginkgo Pharmacy aims to serve the Asian-American community at its Chicago site; particularly the elderly community where the majority of this population is more traditionally eastern in both mindset and lifestyle. The target demographic often distrusts western medicine because of a lack of understanding due to language barriers. We then identified three main factors within our demographic that contribute to the disparity in clinical trials: people have gaps in knowledge about trials, the information on trials feels unapproachable, and there is a general distrust in the medical community. These three factors gave clarity for what Ginkgo had to address and resulted in what you see today. In developing Ginkgo, we kept three ideas in mind to guide the design:
ONE - Bring clinical trials to people, not people to clinical trials.
TWO - Bridge gaps in knowledge in order to build trust.
THREE - Break down accessibility barriers.
When tackling the proposal, there was a clear need to incorporate the community into the overall program and give priority to serving them holistically. Thus, programmatic functions were sorted into two categories: healthcare and engagement. This is reflected in the floorplan where communal functions like a cafe or gallery spaces are on one side, and pharmaceutical care on the other side; they’re connected by a clear circulation path that elegantly blends the different zones into a cohesive plan. A timber-framed sunroom extending out from the side of the current building pays homage to Eastern traditions.