Medical Facility Gets Site Specific Design

CHALLENGE:Wilford Hall Ambulatory Surgical Center at Joint Base San Antonio-Lackland, Texas, is the largest outpatient ambulatory care center in the Department of Defense. The $380-million phased project brought a LEED Gold facility that spans 670,000 sq. ft. to Lackland Air Force Base. As part of the Wilford Hall replacement, the design team at HDR worked to design a building that responded to the site, including the environmental impacts of solar and wind. INFLUENCE:The design team wanted materials that reflected both rural central Texas and the hi-tech feel of the armed forces. The wall panels did exactly that and lent sustainable characteristics with the panels’ natural style and purpose. “The building is influenced by different perspectives, such as a high volumes of people coming to the facility,” says James Henry, design director for HDR’s Health Practice. “As the largest free-standing ambulatory facility in the DoD’s portfolio, there is no model to work from. So we looked at other areas, such as retail and aviation, where there is a lot of people movement. At the same time we had to consider that all military bases have standards. We had to create a new medical architectural standard for the district while adhering to existing base standards.” SOLUTION:The project used 150,000 sq. ft. of 1.5-mm zinc and 0.080-in. aluminum Dri-Design Panels. The zinc is VMZINC Quartz, a natural zinc treated to mimic a natural patina. The aluminum panels were painted in Bone White, Dark Bronze and Gauntlet Gray colors. Metal panels are used on the exterior as the cladding material and brise soleils. For the interior, the metal panels were added to seamlessly transition inside and outside spaces in the chapel, lobby, elevator entrance and entryway vestibules. null