Bronze Award: Cleveland Clinic Abu Dhabi

The Cleveland Clinic's massive medical center in Abu Dhabi, a joint venture with the government of the United Arab Emirates, comprises 101 acres of floor space, roughly two-thirds the size of the Pentagon. But the project's magnitude is one of its strengths.

The facility was cited by judges for its remarkable adaptation of esthetics, culture and the latest in healthcare innovations and energy efficiency to a physical environment in which high temperatures for July and August average 108 degrees.

Its three main multistory open areas—the Souk, Waha and Wadi—are named for and seek to emulate traditional Arab social and geological forms: a marketplace, oasis and valley.

“This facility is a marvel to behold,” said judge Nicholas Tejada, CEO of the Hospitals of Providence's Transmountain Campus, El Paso, Texas. “The use of 'Waha' represents tremendous integration with the surrounding environment.”

The hospital, which opened in May 2015, accommodates 364 inpatient beds, expandable to 490 with 13 floors of inpatient units and 26 operating rooms. It houses more than 30 medical and surgical specialties.

“It is a project of a lifetime,” said Mohammed Ayoub, vice president at HDR in New York and the health center's design director. Ayoub worked with the Mubadala Development Corp., which is the UAE government's funding agency, and the urban planning council of the city of Abu Dhabi. Also, there were “more than 300 Cleveland Clinic physicians and clinical personnel who were involved in the design of each of the clinical and specialized care areas, and hundreds of architects, interior designers and planners from around the world contributed to the building's design,” Ayoub said.

In 2002, for his graduate school thesis at the University of Westminster in London, Ayoub developed the idea of enclosing a building in two glass walls to improve heating and cooling efficiency.

The walls he finally implemented at Abu Dhabi are spaced more than 5 feet apart, with the building's exhaust air, which is cooler than outdoor temperatures, pumped into the space. “What that did is create a thermal buffer,” Ayoub said.

It meets the U.S. Green Building Council's Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design Gold standard. “When you go somewhere where they can have daytime temperatures of 115, it's no small challenge to build in an environment like that,” said judge Cecilia DeLoach Lynn, director of sector performance and recognition at Practice Greenhealth, Reston, Va.