Photo: Novant Health’s Agnes Binder Weisiger Breast Health Center is a state-of-the-art facility designed to deliver coordinated, patient-centered breast care.
By Sara Robinson, AIA, ACHA, EDAC
Healthcare design is about more than clinical function or visual appeal. It’s about anticipating emotional needs, easing anxiety and empowering patients during some of life’s most difficult moments. As architects, we often speak about designing with empathy—but for me, that principle became personal.
In 2022, I was diagnosed with stage 4 metastatic breast cancer. Overnight, I became the patient navigating a variety of healthcare environments, often several in a single week. In just the first month, I visited more than a dozen exam rooms, underwent diagnostic mammography, multiple CTs and MRIs, two biopsies, robotic surgery with an overnight inpatient stay, and began a short course of radiation therapy.
Many of the spaces I encountered were ones I’d previously designed or evaluated through research and anecdotal insight—and now I was experiencing them firsthand. While the quality and age of the facilities varied, it was clear to me that the intent behind them was thoughtful. Still, even with good planning, I came to appreciate just how much small details can impact a patient’s sense of comfort, control and dignity. There’s always room to do better.
When our team at McMillan Pazdan Smith Architecture began designing Novant Health’s Agnes Binder Weisiger Breast Health Center in Charlotte, N.C., I brought both my professional and personal perspectives to the table. The goal wasn’t just to create a beautiful building; it was to create an environment that supports patients through some of the most emotional and uncertain moments of their lives.
Bridging Clinical Excellence with Compassion
The center is a state-of-the-art facility designed to deliver coordinated, patient-centered breast care. Novant Health’s vision for the center was clear: combine leading diagnostic and treatment services with a healing, thoughtful environment. The completed facility reflects that intent and significantly expands access to care, more than doubling the square footage of the previous diagnostic center and tripling the capacity to perform cancer screenings.
Our design team worked hand in hand with Novant Health and the end users, including physicians, imaging technicians, nurses and patient experience advocates, to shape a space that feels intuitive and comfortable.
Designing From the Inside Out
Photo Credit (all): Kris Decker, Firewater Photography
The team approached the Weisiger Breast Health Center with a patient-first mindset that was grounded in what we call our “equation for success”: Motion + Emotion = Experience. The idea is simple: If either motion (workflow, circulation, logistics) or emotion (how a patient feels at any given moment) is negative, the overall experience suffers. When both are considered and supported, the experience can become truly healing.
To ensure that balance, we used Lean design methodologies to map the movement of both patients and staff through the facility, identifying key milestones such as check-in, imaging, consultation and waiting. At each of those moments, we asked: How might someone be feeling here? Then, informed by research and evidence-based design, we applied targeted interventions to support both the emotional and operational needs of everyone in the building.
This approach directly informed several design strategies, including:
- Private changing areas directly connected to imaging suites, allowing patients to avoid walking through public corridors in a gown
- Zoned waiting areas with varying levels of privacy, giving patients autonomy over how and where they wait
- Soft lighting and natural materials that help reduce the cold, clinical feel often associated with diagnostic facilities
- Enclosed private gardens surrounding diagnostic and consultation areas, offering visual relief and moments of calm
- A discreet entrance and exit, supporting patients who may need more privacy, including return patients, those receiving difficult news, or male and transgender patients
- Streamlined clinical adjacencies, improving workflow and allowing staff to spend more time with patients
Behind each of these decisions was a shared goal: to ease anxiety, enhance dignity and support meaningful care moments. As a patient, those were the times I felt most hopeful and comforted, not because of a specific room or material, but because the people caring for me had the space and support to be fully present.
Sara Robinson, AIA, ACHA, EDAC, is a senior associate in the Healthcare Studio of McMillan Pazdan Smith, a regional, studio-based design firm with offices in Charleston, Greenville and Spartanburg, South Carolina; Asheville and Charlotte, North Carolina; and Atlanta, Georgia. Contact her at srobinson@mcmillanpazdansmith.com.
Watch for Part II of this article next week on identifying design elements that are typically overlooked in healthcare design, and keeping the patient at the heart of the process.
