Healthcare & Life Sciences
DeSimone brings integrated engineering services and specialized expertise to each healthcare, life science, or research facility project—empowering us to develop custom, right-engineered solutions for each unique project and site—whether for the innovative conception of a new building or the imaginative adaptive reuse or expansion of an existing facility.
Our in-house teams possess experience in a broad range of healthcare and research facilities and program spaces, from highly specialized cancer care and research facilities, cardiac care and trauma centers, ERs and ICUs, to laboratories for life sciences, pharma, and biotech across biosafety levels, including clean rooms and vivariums, as well as computational and collaborative spaces engineered for technologically advanced research and groundbreaking scientific discovery.
The value of our integration of expertise and services goes beyond our own team: we understand how the demands of MEP systems, geotech, soil conditions, sustainability, civil and site engineering, and more will affect the overall design, often impacting our work in critical and nuanced ways.
By sharing experience-based insights with our clients and project teams from the earliest stages of design and development, we inform the design process, playing a critical role in optimizing facilities for long-term durability, safety, specialized care and functions, and flexibility.
DeSimone’s recent healthcare projects include the 226,000 SF (21,000 SM) White Plains Hospital for Advanced Medicine and Surgery, featuring ambulatory surgery and offices, advanced imaging, diagnostic cardiology, hyperbaric wound care, operating rooms and bridges to adjacent buildings. Prior healthcare projects include the Yale Health Center in New Haven, NYU Cancer Center in Manhattan, and the Baptist Cardiac Health Center and Ryder Trauma Center Hurricane Hardening at Jackson Memorial Hospital, both in South Florida.
For both healthcare and laboratories, we design structures that can support the heavy loads of specialized diagnostic and research equipment, like high-magnetic field MRIs and CT scanners and shielding of radiation-producing equipment. We also conduct vibrational testing, modeling, and design for research lab equipment sensitive to vibration including high-resolution electron and optical microscopes, mass spectrometers, analytical balances, High-Performance Liquid Chromatography (HLPC), and equipment for semiconductor manufacturing and laser-based research.
Whether for hospitals or outpatient clinics, we design for a patient-centered healthcare experience, tapping into our experience in the hospitality sector to design structures with wide, navigable corridors for effective circulation, clear-span, double-height, light-filled atriums, and warm, welcoming amenity spaces that shape a positive and calming environment for patients, visitors, and medical staff.
Similarly, we bring our integrated services and knowledge to meeting the complex demands of lab- and research-intense facilities with flexibility and optional floor-to-ceiling heights to above-ceiling accommodation of HVAC ducts and essential mechanical systems, equipment and infrastructure, to support advanced equipment, overall airflow, lighting, and acoustics.
Recent research and lab facilities include the 500,000 SF (46,500 SM) LEED Platinum 2 Harbor Life Sciences Center in South Boston, for which we designed a cast-in-place concrete superstructure with a steel-framed mechanical penthouse atop a centralized concrete core, creating large, flexible floorplates to support the heavy laboratory loads imposed on the building. Designed for maximum flexibility, labs and offices can be placed anywhere in the building without cost premiums typically associated with laboratories over conventional commercial office space.
In Manhattan, our structural and façade teams adapted a former Chrysler dealership and repair facility to become The West End Labs, a 400,000-SF (37,200 SM) multi-tenant life sciences research and development hub—complete with labs and offices, lab infrastructure, collaborative spaces, conference center, café, roof terrace, main common area, and resilient systems—all within a seven-story, heavy-framed industrial shell.
Currently, the DeSimone team is wrapping up work at the HELIX Health and Life Science Exchange Tech Innovation Hub, a multi-building complex for health, life sciences, tech companies, and research. The project includes a new medical school, translational research facilities, office and lab space, and residential units.
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About us
In an industry in which consolidation has become the norm, DeSimone stands apart from large engineering practices. The diversification of our services enables us to support a global clientele experiencing complex challenges. We remain independent so that we are able to provide bespoke and personal solutions, wherever your vision takes you.
Structural engineering is where we began, and it is still the core of our practice. But through the years, we have expanded the services we offer our clients, from façade and building envelope to vertical transportation to steel detailing and fabrication-ready modeling to advisory services.
