2018 MCHAP
Harvey Pediatric Clinic
Maron Blackwell
Rogers, MI, USA
May 2016
AUTOR PRINCIPAL
Marlon Blackwell Architects
AUTOR CONTRIBUYENTE
Stuart Fulbright (Landscape Designer) HP Engineering, Inc (Mechanical, Electrical, and Plumbing Engineers) Tatum Smith Engineers (Structural Engineer) Bates & Associates (Civil Engineer)
CLIENTE
Dr. Bryan Harvey
FOTÓGRAFO
Timothy Hursley
OBJETIVO
The Harvey Pediatric Clinic is a progressive building for a progressive client, one who seeks a holistic approach to medicine and healing. The building compliments the practice and elevates the medical office typology, which is too often made up of mundane, suburban structures. The strong form and reduced material palette presents a more dynamic, abstract figure in a land that was once rural, primarily agricultural and dotted by the silhouettes of singular structures such as barns, sheds, and silos. Beyond providing a striking landmark, the building provides a highly efficient, organized clinic for Harvey Pediatrics. The Clinic occupies the entire upper level of the building. Patients enter the building and pause in the waiting room at the east prior to moving into one of the sixteen exam rooms in the center of the building. Staff enter at the ground floor breakroom at the west prior to moving up the stairs to the Flex Space, which serves as an administrative hub for the practice. Nurses’ stations and doctor’s offices are embedded within the exam rooms. The carefully planned circulation allows nurses and doctors to move quickly between exam rooms, meeting with and treating each patient with care and attention. Light and views to the exterior are central to each Clinic space. Unlike many medical office buildings, patients, nurses, and doctors have near continuous views outside through the glass wall at the waiting room and the long ribbon window along the north side of the building.
CONTEXTO
Situated in a fast developing area of Rogers, Arkansas, the Harvey Pediatric Clinic is the new home of a thriving pediatric clinic. While the area is quickly becoming a hub for medical office buildings, the Harvey Pediatric Clinic seeks to rise above the everyday structures that populate the area and establish a new visual landmark along South 52nd Street, the main commercial corridor in the area. The building’s south façade is conceived of as a billboard for passing traffic, giving both the building and primary tenant, Harvey Pediatrics, a strong presence and identity. The cayenne color box rib metal cladding wraps the entire south elevation. Second level interior spaces and exam rooms along this elevation are lit from above with a skylight that stretches the length of the building. A portal creates a drop of area for patients under the building. Tenant spaces on either side of the pass-through are wrapped in glass, providing a connection with the surrounding landscape and a visual and material separation from the upper floor. Entering the building from the portal, one ascends a stair embedded in the “foot” of the structure and arrives in a waiting room at the east end of the building. A brise soleil along this wall guards the space from excessive solar exposure. The pop-up at the west end of the structure holds a mezzanine with a wall of glass to the north, allowing light to wash the interior of the space and providing a visual connection to the sky.
ACTUACIÓN
Our client, Dr. Bryan Harvey, asked a simple question: “How are you helping children grow rather than just survive?” This question has led Dr. Harvey to focus on fostering child development and mental health in addition to treating physical ailments. When seeking a new home for his practice, he sought a facility that would support his vision for what pediatric care should be and elevate medical office typology. The nearly 40 employees of Harvey Pediatrics administer to over 150 patients ranging from infants to young adults daily. Throughout the initial phases of the design process, Dr. Harvey pushed for a building that could capture the imagination of these young patients yet serve the everyday needs of his large staff. Rather than see these two tasks as competing factors in the design, a discursive process allowed for a symbiotic relationship between form-making and space-planning. The result is a building that is identifiable, bold, and highly efficient for the large staff of nurses and doctors. The Harvey Pediatric Clinic is a progressive building for a progressive client. The form of the building provides the Clinic with a strong identity, allowing the building to be easily recognizable to children and parents alike. When seeing the building for the first time, one young child described it as an “airplane.” Dr. Harvey boasts that it, “is unusual and definitive, but not flamboyant…a building that [is] a stimulus for the kids but also a great work environment for the staff."
