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On the southwest side of Houston, there are two adjoining and difficult communities: Gulfton and Sharpstown, where more than 30% of residents live below the poverty line, and the incidence of chronic diseases is still high. Legacy Community Health, a full-service federally qualified health center that operates 40 clinics in southeastern Texas, tries to meet these challenges. Joel Kalmin, Head of Facilities Planning at Legacy Community Health, said: “We started buying a building with existing practices seven years ago to serve these communities. Three large-scale renovations were made to accommodate our growth there and provide more services. “
When an open space was available near the clinic, Legacy saw an opportunity for large-scale expansion and continued to meet the growing demand for medical services in the area. To achieve this goal, while keeping the existing 14,000-square-foot building open during construction, a new 33,000-square-foot clinic was built on the open space; after completion, the old clinic was demolished to make room for the new 160 dedicated parking lots. “We have conducted an in-depth investigation of the needs of the surrounding health care providers and the community to ensure that the new clinic has a greater impact on the community it serves than its predecessor,” Carmin said.
The new clinic covers an area of ??2 acres and can serve more than 100,000 patients each year. It provides two new major services-adult drugs and on-site pharmacies-as well as all the services previously provided, including pediatrics, women’s health, behavioral health, and after-hours clinics , Imaging, blood collection laboratories, immunization clinics, education classrooms and social services. The services provided by the latter include “providing a wide range of psychosocial services for patients and their families, including case management, patient advocacy, and psychological/social support,” Kalmin said.
Specific location
Hired by Legacy to deliver the new complex Perkins & Will (Houston). As the chief planner, architect and interior designer of the project, the design team used the rectangular building shape to adapt to the narrow plot of the site, with a complete ground floor and part of the second floor. Diana Davis, head and managing director of Perkins&Will’s Houston studio, said that this shape in turn promotes the experience of entering the clinic. “Because most of the clinic’s clients come on foot or by public transportation, we used the two floors of the building to create an external niche that provides some protection when they are ready to enter the building,” Davis said.
Inside, the center of the complex has 64 examination rooms for primary care consultation and specialized services, including pediatrics and obstetrics and gynecology. The first floor is divided into three groups, each with 18 rooms, and the second floor has a group of 18 rooms. Room. Each of these pods has an employee workstation running in its center. “The layout of the exam and team spaces is designed to improve the efficiency of patient care,” said Corrine Rojas, Perkins&Will’s interior designer. “Each examination room is configured as an onstage/understage experience with dual entrances, allowing the patient’s care team to negotiate directly after the examination, while the other team can also prepare the room for the next patient.”
The 1,400-square-foot internal pharmacy is located at the other end of the main entrance of the building and can be accessed through a public corridor extending the length of the facility and a dedicated exterior door. According to Kalmin of Legacy, “The internal entrance to the internal pharmacy minimizes the need for people to stop on their way home on their way home.”
“The integration of our pharmacies and clinics improves medication compliance, thereby improving outcomes. We also provide a separate outdoor entrance for those who do not come directly from an appointment but need to refill prescriptions.”
In addition to the examination room, the smaller second floor of the clinic also houses classrooms for community health courses, a community square for informal exchanges, and a qualification room for staff experts to meet with patients to arrange payment plans.
Perkins&Will also conducted extensive consultations with clinic staff regarding their needs, which resulted in two specific staff convenience spaces-a lounge with its own kitchen and a breastfeeding room-also located on the second floor. Both areas can be accessed via a private staircase, which also allows employees to directly access other spaces on the floor. In addition to the products on the second floor, the designer also created eight lounge areas with sofas and lockers in a private corridor with large windows on the first floor. (The corridor is on the opposite side of the building, opposite the main public corridor connecting the lobby area and the pharmacy.)
Meaningful details
In addition to improving the clinic’s patient and staff experience, the project team also sought to provide facilities connected to the community. The message begins with the entrance experience, with the exterior mural created by Houston artists Angel Quesada and Jesse Sifuentes. Six 11-foot-tall panels use cathedral glass and acrylic enamel paint, and are titled “With the Sun.” Inspired by Latin America, Asia and Africa-the main living areas of community residents-the colors and patterns of textiles-the figures in the panel represent a hopeful and iconic depiction of the family and public social structure, and the sun symbolizes life ——Give warmth, Davis said.
Further reflecting the diversity of the area it serves-residents here come from 80 countries and speak 50 languages-the building’s exterior walls use a bold palette of bright turquoise, orange and yellow tones to create Culture and textiles pay tribute to the aforementioned regions and as a tribute to the Legacy logo.
Themes similar to the appearance run through the interior of the clinic, including panels handcrafted by craftsmen in the African country of Senegal. These panels are integrated into the railings of the main staircase and serve as privacy screens in the pharmacy. In addition, the indoor public space features mosaic tile walls and backlit signage, which are both cultural symbols and support for the clinic’s color-coded wayfinding system. “Because of all the languages ??spoken in the surrounding area, we think it is better to create color-coded areas throughout the space,” Rojas said. “The color of each entrance and waiting area is coordinated with its designated examination room. So, for example, the pediatrician there will follow the green space throughout the visit.”
Take the test
The clinic opened in December 2019. Just a few months later, as the first wave of COVID-19 unfolded in the United States, the new outdoor pharmacy parking lot was transformed into one of the first places in the Houston area to provide COVID-19 free of charge. 19 Test.
Kalmin added that this flexibility illustrates how the new clinic can help “exceed our expectations and provide fair healthcare to high-risk communities in a respectful and culturally sensitive manner.”
Project details:
Project name: Legacy Community Health Southwest Clinic
Project completion date: December 2019
Owner: Legacy Community Health
Total floor area: 32,852 square feet
Total construction cost: $11.3 million
Cost/m²: US$345
Architect: Perkins&Will
Interior designer: Perkins&Will, Legacy Community Health
General Contractor: Harvey Builders
Engineers: Walter P Moore (structure and civil engineering), E&C engineer (MEP)
Builder: Harvey Builder
Public Art Consultant: WAG-Weingarten Art Group
Carpet/Floor: Patcraft, Tarkett
Ceiling/Wall System: Armstrong, Ceilings Plus
Door/lock/hardware: DIRTT
Fabric/textile: standard textile
Furniture-seats/bags: Staples, Allseating
Lighting: Delray, Luminis, 3Form, Corelite, Metalux, Atlantic Lighting, Neo-Ray, Nulite, Ametrix
Signage/Wayfinding: Riot Creative Imaging, Neon Electric Co.
Surface-solid/other: Avonite Surfaces, 3Form
Wallpaper: Wolf Gordon
Matthew Hall is a freelance writer/editor based in Cincinnati.He can be in [email protected].
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