Interview with MaineGeneral's Architect
/“You’re designing an experience, not a building. You’re creating feelings for people as they move through a space—via colors, light, temperature, materials and textures. And the experiences are fleeting; you only have a few seconds to create those feelings.”
Architect Paul Lewandowski’s designs focus on the people who walk through his walls, not the walls themselves. He creates environments, beginning and ending with how people will experience those environments.
Paul Lewandowski, SMRT Architects and Engineers
Lewandowski’s approach is obvious in MaineGeneral Health’s latest addition in Augusta, Maine—a 600,000 square-foot, $300 million facility that exemplifies humanistic design and includes an art collection of over 200 original works by some of Maine’s leading artists.
Humanistic Design
“This is especially important in healthcare, where people with compromised health are more sensitive to their surroundings. You have to take it seriously.”
Patient experience is something you hear a lot these days in healthcare. More than just clinical care, the patient experience takes into account every aspect of the care given to a patient and the experience a patient has at a facility.
According to the Beryl Institute’s Patient Experience Journal, the patient experience includes all the things that happen across the continuum of care, a focus on tailored services and individualized care that makes patients partners in their care, patient expectations, patient satisfaction and care focused on the patient and their loved ones.
Naturally, the patient experience includes facility design.
Paul Lewandowski is an architect and interior design principal at SMRT Architects and Engineers in Portland, Maine, and Assistant Professor of Textile and Fashion Design at the Maine College of Art.