Tanana Chiefs Conference Chief Andrew Isaac Health Center: an award-winning culturally inspired landscape and facility design.

• Position: SPECIAL SECTION: Engineering & Architecture - Conference news

"Make them comfortable."

A doctor at the Tanana Chief's Conference (TCC) Chief Andrew Isaac Health Center in Fairbanks gave this directive to the design team. Native Alaska patients travel sometimes thousands of miles to receive medical care, and the team worked closely to create a comforting, healing space, inside and out.

A Cultural Advisory Committee comprised of Native elders and village tribal members gathered during collaborative planning workshops, and Interior Native Alaska identity and culture drove every aspect of design.

Because Native peoples are very connected to their lands, the team connected the interior spaces with the natural surroundings to create a welcoming, familiar, comfortable setting. Key gathering and waiting spaces were placed along the exterior south-facing walls to harvest and balance natural light and offer a visual connection to the landscape.

Patients and visitors can also meander through the site, which is filled with native plants courtesy of nearly one acre of "tundra mat" blocks harvested near Fairbanks and set around the clinic. It is common during autumn to see elders picking blueberries in the clinic's gardens. The design also includes a medicinal garden, featuring traditional native healing plants, and a "welcome wall" with "welcome" written in Alaska Native languages.

The Cultural Advisory Committee also asked the design team to retain as many of the existing trees from the site as possible. In total, forty-three birch and aspen trees were saved and remain in groves onsite.

A dry streambed is a functional and aesthetic focal point. Interior Alaska villages...