MICHAEL ON DESIGN

 

 

‘But Doug, we really don’t ‘DO’ medical office buildings.’ ‘That’s why I want you on this project.’

That’s how our involvement with Dr. Doug Halsted and the Orthopedic Trauma Group started.

Doug had just optioned a couple acres of rugged hillside land across the street from his existing office at Centennial Office Park and was thinking about planning a holistic health center for his practice and others as well. When Doug called I was thrilled but a little apprehensive. Doctors in this part of the world aren’t’ really know for their creative office settings. Plastic Surgeons in LA, definitely; orthopedic surgeons in New England, I’m not so sure.

I called Doug Jones from Keith Leblanc Landscape Architects to help out with the site planning. After walking the site in knee deep snow we discovered that not only was it some type of quarry but it was filed with some pretty deep holes, steep cliffs and…junk. Anyway Doug got a road up to the top that satisfied the fire department and accessed 3 building sites. Each site was different in slope, configuration and size so clearly one building was not going to fit on all sites.

We set about designing a modular building type with a flexible ‘knuckle’ or ‘hinge’ that would attach 2 building blocks. This was we could ‘bend’ the building to suite each site condition and we could also layout each building differently so they looked different without reinventing the structure.

One block was rectangular and had parking under it. The other block was square. Each block could be different heights and sizes. The ‘knuckle was designed in glass and used as an atrium for vertical and horizontal access between the building blocks.

Finally we proposed some imagery for the buildings to the Group. This provided them with a solid concept of how the site and buildings worked together without committing to a ‘look’ (or price point).

At the end of the day the plan is unique, while still being cost effective, flexible and practical. We thank Doug Halsted for giving us this opportunity to work on something different from our typical work and look forward to realizing this vision of modern health care architecture.

Tags: Commercial Design //