Book excerpt: Bringing together the best aspects of ambulatory care, complementary medicine, and fitness clubs under one roof, wellness centers are poised to become an essential vehicle of healthcare delivery for the 21st century. Although wellness-based programs have been instituted by nearly every hospital system in North America, very little has been published on this rapidly emerging building type. Wellness Centers enables design professionals and others to understand the fitness and healthcare requirements of these facilities, and to address them effectively in their work. Providing essential insights into balancing the healthcare and retail demands of wellness centers, Joan Whaley Gallup reviews every step of the planning and development process, addressing project assessment, financing, programming, and marketing. She draws on her extensive expertise in creating wellness centers to cover a full range of development and design considerations, including design guidelines for lobby/waiting areas, clinical space, administrative areas, pools, saunas, and indoor gardens. Finally, an inspiring project portfolio profiles an impressive roster of successful wellness centers from around the world. With useful information on code compliance, plus floor plans, schematic designs, and more, this book is a vital professional resource for anyone involved in wellness center design, planning, or management. "The wellness center is the most positive, nurturing, life-affirming building type ever to evolve in the history of healthcare facilities design. . . . By turning inside out the trends of past centuries, we can now focus on wellness. We can create buildings that will nurture and sustain us, healing environments that will serve to support happy, life-enhancing activities. Centers for wellness are centers for life."-from the Preface The first book of its kind, Wellness Centers offers design professionals and others complete cutting-edge coverage of these complex new facilities, from planning and development issues to design guidelines and case examples of successful wellness centers from around the world. Written by an architect with extensive experience in the field, this book provides a firm foundation in wellness center design, planning, and management-essential reading for anyone involved in this rapidly growing area of healthcare design.