Garden Clinic

The Garden Clinic is a conceptual reproductive healthcare reception center designed for Cornell University in response to the spatial inequities emerging in post-Roe America. As access to reproductive care becomes geographically fragmented, healthcare infrastructure must respond not only socially, but environmentally and technically. This project positions reproductive health as both civic and ecological infrastructure.
The architectural strategy transforms the conflict between an open university campus and the privacy demands of reproductive care into a layered system of protection through landscape and form. A triadic courtyard organization structures the building: a central Meeting Courtyard for clinical encounter, a hidden therapeutic garden, and a public square mediating campus engagement. This geometry establishes controlled visibility gradients while enabling passive environmental performance.
Sustainability is embedded in the massing logic. Thick, curved perimeter walls function as thermal mass, stabilizing indoor temperatures and reducing mechanical dependency. The courtyard system enables cross-ventilation and daylight penetration, minimizing operational energy loads. Native planting and layered vegetation create microclimate regulation, acoustic buffering, and seasonal sensory engagement. Green roofs incorporate rainwater harvesting systems and biodiversity strategies, reinforcing ecological resilience at the campus scale.
The project further advances sustainable construction through digitally rationalized curvature. The continuous curved wall system is modularized into prefabricated segments, allowing efficient formwork repetition and minimizing material waste. Parametric modeling informs both geometry optimization and structural performance, ensuring that expressive spatial form remains constructible and materially efficient. Low-carbon concrete alternatives, locally sourced aggregates, and low-VOC interior finishes reduce embodied environmental impact.
By integrating environmental systems with advanced fabrication logic, the Garden Clinic demonstrates how socially urgent healthcare infrastructure can also operate as a model of sustainable innovation. The project reframes reproductive healthcare architecture not as a reactive typology, but as forward-looking ecological design—where geometry, landscape, and construction intelligence collectively support both bodily autonomy and environmental responsibility.