An architect student at the University of Colorado-Boulder has spent the past several months designing a state-of-the-art facility, pro bono, for the Needlerock Family Health Clinic in Crawford. The value of the donated services is estimated at $74,000, said clinic owner Jenny Mitchell.
For her senior independent study, Kate Pedersen selected the clinic out of several other rural health clinics in Colorado that cater to an underserved population. “People who need architecture the most are the people who rarely get it,” Pedersen said. “My personal mission is to learn more about how to help spread the benefits of design and the creation of space to better the lives of the people who could not normally afford it.”
Pedersen designed three different plans with the help of her boss, J.V. Desousa, an architect in Boulder who encouraged her to create her own project, and her professor, Marcel De Lange who encouraged her to work on a project that could actually get built. Mitchell chose one of those designs, available for viewing on Pedersen’s blog. The design includes a lab, three patient rooms and a conference room, among other features.
“It’s really an honor,” said Mitchell, who started the clinic as a mobile health center in January 2008. The clinic has since expanded, and now Mitchell sees patients in a building located behind the realtor’s office in Crawford, in addition to operating the mobile van. Medicaid, Medicare and many insurances are now accepted at the clinic, and patients without health insurance are able to pay on a sliding scale.
“This is a dream,” Mitchell said of the clinic expansion. “But it’s surely within reach.” Best case scenario, Mitchell hopes to have a building purchased by the end of 2010 with the remodel happening the following summer.
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