Spodak Dental Group serves a large retirement community in the areas of Delray Beach, Palm Beach and Boca Raton, on the east coast of Florida. Since Dr. Myles opened his practice there in 1976, he’s built a positive reputation by treating families as if they were his own. His father was also a dentist and each generation of Drs. Spodak has shared a passion for giving their patients smiles to be proud of.

For Dr. Craig, the Delray Beach area has also been the perfect place to watch healthcare’s evolution, as older adults spend more time at the doctor and the dentist in order to maintain independence and quality of life.

Beginning in 2009, Dr. Craig began to give shape to his dream by contracting the dental design firm Practice Design Group and world-renowned artist Michael Singer of Michael Singer Studio.

Dr. Craig shared with them his vision for a large-scale facility with room enough for each specialist to practice, plus collaboration areas throughout the building. He also was inspired by the biophilia hypothesis, which suggests that humans feel and heal better in environments that incorporate natural light and landscapes. “The genesis of the practice was that I wanted to build something that hadn’t been done before, aesthetically and functionally,” Dr. Craig said.

The first step was to find a location for the new facility. The Spodak Dental Group building was located on a lot that restricted future building options, so Dr. Craig found a new lot about half a mile from the existing practice.

After reviewing the initial proposed layout of the practice, Singer reconstructed the floor plan into an eco-friendly building designed to take advantage of natural daylighting and connect the indoor spaces to the surrounding landscape. The original floor plan provided was about 10,000 square feet; after Singer was done with it, it was more than 13,000 square feet.

Singer’s building plans are extraordinary and include transparent walls, floor-to-ceiling glass windows in every operatory, and light tubes – long, rotatable skylight-like tubes – that provide natural light to interior spaces. Outside, two cisterns capture 14,000 gallons of rainwater, which is then used for irrigating the native-plant gardens.