In January 2020, Hopkins won a shortlisted competition to design a 1million sqft Neurological Institute for Cleveland Clinic at their main campus in Cleveland, Ohio. The new facility will consolidate 15 separate Neurological Centres into one major hospital building to facilitate interdisciplinary creativity and improve patient care. Also included are inpatient services, neurosurgery and cutting-edge research facilities.

The vision set by Dr Andre Machado, Chair of the Neurological Institute, and his team was for a patient-centred building that could last 100 years and be flexible to change. Hopkins responded with an adaptable, modular design that allows Centres to expand and contract. Physicians’ offices and consulting rooms are efficiently combined using a specially designed ‘nook’ sub-space which can adapt to either be part of a room for collaboration, fully enclosed for focused individual research or locked away when the room is in use by others.

Outpatient facilities, located on the lower floors, will include over 500 examination, treatment and flexible consultation rooms, combined with a suite of 18 neurological operating theatres. The upper floors comprise an inpatient tower with 218 private beds providing care for patients with a wide variety of acuity levels. The building will also house the most advanced neuroimaging equipment, such as IMRIS suites and MEG scanners.

The challenge of this project has been to create an appropriately scaled massing for a very large programme. To achieve this, we have introduced a 100ft high setback line to separate outpatient from inpatient floors and align to the existing campus buildings. We wanted to create a building of hope for the most critically ill, using a blend of warm materials, welcoming entrances and maximising natural light. Large floorplates are efficient but also intuitive, so patients instinctively know where to go.

The Neurological Institute is currently under construction and due to open late 2026.