State-of-the-art facilities replace aging hospital buildings
by Jonathan McGaha | October 31, 2008 12:00 am
Completed in March 2007, the Ambulatory Clinic, located on the campus of The University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center in Dallas, marked the completion of the first phase of the university’s mission to replace its aging hospital and clinical buildings with new, state-of-the-art facilities. The new structures are designed to accommodate inpatient hospital care for over 92,000 people and nearly 1.7 million outpatient visits a year.
Embracing the principles of new urbanism and LEED sustainability principles, the resulting plan creates a new high-tech, higher density facility with a distinctly human focus. As the campus develops, each new structure will be oriented to present an open face to the surrounding community.
The architect gave the new Ambulatory Clinic a two-level base for diagnostic and treatment services to tie the new structure into the existing campus. The clinic will also support a new hospital tower and precast concrete façade. High-glazed curtainwalls on the north and south walls were clad in Reynobond ACM by Alcoa Architectural Products, Eastman, Ga., with tight punched windows and shading systems to provide a modern aesthetic, reflecting the cutting edge technology and medical services housed inside. Healing gardens with water features and green plazas interwoven into the design provide peaceful retreats for patients and their visitors. The architects also used aluminum to screen the rooftop mechanical systems from the views of future towers and help cut the energy load.
More than 30,000 square feet (2,787 m2) of 0.16-inch (4-mm) Reynobond ACM PE core with a custom Seafoam Metallic, three-coat Kynar finish by Alcoa Architectural Products was fabricated for the wall panels, soffit panels and curtainwall transom panels. The panels were installed in Justin, Texas-based Armetco Systems Inc.’s RDX4 rout-and-return dry system.
“The Ambulatory Clinic was placed on the site of an old parking lot behind the main building,” said Michael Shirley, AIA, LEED AP, senior design architect for FKP Architects, Houston. “There was very little open ground, so we had to adjust the design to literally shoe-horn it into the site. We were also limited by a subsurface stream that flows through the site and existing stormwater culverts.” The team also moved and replaced aging fuel tanks that power the hospital’s generators and a number of utility lines. All construction was completed while the hospital continued to operate.
The architect of record was FKP Architects; the associate architect was Jon Lee, FAIA, San Francisco; the general contractor was Balfour Beatty Construction, Dallas; the panel fabricator was Armetco Systems; and the panel installer was MGP Erectors, Justin.
Alcoa Architectural Products, www.alcoaarchitecturalproducts.com
Source URL: https://www.metalarchitecture.com/projects/state-of-the-art-facilities-replace-aging-hospital-buildings/