Karlsberger says it listens to its clients and avoids repeating " a pat design solution."

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Karlsberger savors its ability to collaborate and help clients find the right design, Vice President and Director of Marketing Karen K. Roch says. “We like to work [with] people as an advisor, vs. claiming to be the expert of knowing everything,” she states.

The Columbus, Ohio-based firm offers in-house professional services to the healthcare market, including research, planning, graphic and interior design, and architecture. On each project, the company listens to its clients and avoids repeating “a pat design solution,” Roch says.

Finding the right design depends on multiple factors, including the facility’s operation, context and location, she says. “It’s really about [working with clients] to come up with a unique solution for them,” Roch states.

Going National
Karlsberger’s dedication to the healthcare market has evolved over the past six decades. Louis F. Karlsberger started the company in 1928 to design homes, schools, libraries and churches. In the 1940s, the company took on its first healthcare project, the St. Anthony Hospital in Columbus. Afterward, “[We] never looked back,” Roch says.

Karlsberger’s son, Robert Karlsberger, joined the company in 1957. A graduate of the University of Notre Dame, the younger Karlsberger expanded the reach of the company’s healthcare practice to areas surrounding Ohio, as well as the East Coast and Florida.

Karlsberger wanted to design efficient healthcare facilities that gave their patients more dignity and their families more comfort. "He was a huge advocate for planning and constantly explored ways to reduce operational and construction costs," the company says. "It was an exciting time for the firm, experiencing growth and gaining notoriety." This was important because Karlsberger wanted to lead the firm to greatness in this very specialized market.

In 1977, as president, Karlsberger decided to build the company’s healthcare planning practice and hired Michael Tyne of Ross Planning Associates, a facilities planning group based in Columbus and a division of Ross Labs.  

When Karlsberger retired in 1987, Tyne became its president. During Tyne’s tenure, Karlsberger grew to serve the healthcare and laboratory design industries nationally. Providing healthcare planning and consulting services allowed the firm to become involved in the design process earlier.

Taking ‘The Next Step’
Today, Karlsberger has additional offices in Birmingham, Ala.; New York City; and Ann Arbor, Mich., and employs more than 180 people. The company is celebrating its 80th anniversary this year.

The company has also focused on evidence-based design, which uses the results of research to make decisions in the design process. Karlsberger formed its Karlsberger Research Group in 2005. “[There are] very few architectural firms that have research components,” Vice President of Interior Design Susan E. Long says.

The group not only performs primary and custom research for clients, but also for Karlsberger, as well, allowing it to keep its finger on the pulse of trends in healthcare. This enables the company to provide better services to its clients and help them go to “the next step” in their facilities, Long says.

One critical member of its team is Vice President of Research Juliet Rogers, Ph.D., who was an administrator at the C.S. Mott Women and Children’s Hospital at the University of Michigan Health System. “She understands [the business] from the clinical side,” Long raves. “When people meet her, they know what she’s talking about.”

For the last two years, Rogers and her colleagues have written several papers about trends in evidenced-based healthcare design decisions, as well as pediatric hospital designs, freestanding emergency departments and water features in healthcare environments. The company adds that it has also presented its discoveries to many groups that include the National Association of Children’s Hospitals and Related Institutions, The Center for Health Design, and HealthDesign ’05, ’06 and ’08.

Healthy, Healing Environments
Last July, Karlsberger completed the Dell Children’s Medical Center of Central Texas, a 455,000-square-foot facility in Austin. The center features 169 private bedrooms and is designed to achieve LEED Platinum-level certification. The certification will be officially announced this spring.

A healthcare environment with sustainable features benefits the patients, Long asserts. “A building that’s already unhealthy doesn’t add to a healing environment,” she says. The $100 million-plus facility was built on a brownfield site and features its own freestanding energy cooling and heating plant co-oped by Austin Energy. “[The center] will have [its] own independent energy,” Roch says. “That’s pretty uncommon.”  

The plant produces 100 percent of the hospital’s electricity by utilizing the latest technology in natural gas-fired turbine generators, converting fuel to electricity at an efficiency rate of 60 to 70 percent compared to coal-fired plants efficiency rates of 33 to 37 percent and without the 4 to 8 percent transmission line loss. Chilled water is produced by absorption chillers from waste heat steam, collected from the gas turbines.

The center also incorporated many natural materials into its interiors, including stone and mesquite wood. The Columbus chapter of American Institute of Architects gave Karlsberger the 2006 Designing for Sustainability Award in the “unbuilt” category for its work on the Dell Children’s Medical Center.

Roch predicts Karlsberger will continue to grow as it creates more efficient and healthy environments. “We want to be thought of as forward-thinkers in healthcare design,” she says. “We’re looking for intriguing ways to push design and planning.”