Mission of the project:

The Warren Professional Building Corporation commissioned the design team to create a new campus atmosphere with the addition of a new medical office building. A major goal of the client and design team became to utilize open space as the organizing "healing" element for the campus. Through collaborative design efforts among disciplines, the landscape architects were able to assist in the design of a cohesive environment that reflected the native Eastern Oklahoma landscape and transformed several individual buildings into a connected network.

 

The character of the existing site reflects a sea of parking between two large medical buildings that house offices of several doctors who work in the site's adjacent Saint Francis Hospital. The architect who acted as the prime designer of the building recommended two driving design elements in order to help unify the buildings into one campus environment. One was a sky-bridge system that would connect the pedestrian from the adjacent hospital to all of the medical buildings within the site therefore eliminating the use of vehicular travel within the project. Since the existing site was already suffering from space limitations and was covered with asphalt parking, the second recommendation eliminated all surface parking into garages behind the buildings and replaced them with open space. This allowed the site to maximize its parking needs while still maintaining a common green. With the assistance of a traffic engineer, the architect developed a schematic site plan that relocated all the existing parking into garages while adding a new building footprint and open space. This reorganized the site to allow the project a much more cohesive campus connection while creating an opportunity for landscape within the heart of the project.

 

Approach of the landscape architects:

With a preliminary site plan in hand, the client and architect sought out the landscape architects to create a campus with a healing approach to design. The firm they pursued is recognized for the design and implementation of many environmental education projects that stress native landscapes. However, this prime landscape architect firm strived to strengthen their team further by joining forces with another firm who had achieved published recognition in the design of healing gardens.

 

Integral team player:

Together, these two firms combined talents to obtain the strongest results. They reviewed the preliminary site plan formulated by the team and developed some major strategies. One was to work in tandem with the traffic engineers to reorient the circulation and entry areas. The effort was to minimize the impact of the vehicle on the ground plane pedestrian crossings between buildings while maximizing the open space. This created "drop-off' zones for each building entry, yet directed visitors toward the parking garages. Another strategy was to utilize a body of water as a foreground vista from the street to the building's main architectural rotunda. They needed to meet set grades on existing buildings, so instead of utilizing a large flat lake, they recommended the idea of multiple pools with waterfalls to draw the visitor's eye toward the massive rotunda. The remaining suggestions revolved around other areas of the project, including the roof garden and the atrium. Here the landscape architects also were an integral part of the design team by working with the architect, engineers, and client to transform the design.

 

The design resolution and unique solutions:

After resolution of these major elements, the landscape architects focused on four areas of design: 1) the medical district as a whole, 2) the campus environment, 3) the atrium, and 4) the roof garden.

 

As a beginning to the project, the prime landscape architect documented over aerial photographs the adjacent or surrounding pieces of property that were either owned by the client or utilized for medical purposes. Realizing that these properties connected to create a district along the major vehicle corridor of Yale Avenue, they recommended that the Owner invest into a landscape and graphic program that would visually tie the properties together through a consistent streetscape. The second major design component of the site was the campus orientation itself. Since the adjacent hospital, originally founded by the client, was part of the Saint Francis Health System, it was determined that this campus (particularly the new building) should reflect some symbolism of the relation. The concept of the site began to follow that of Saint Francis, life path. Saint Francis was a man who was born into a world of wealth in an old Spanish Basque family of Xavier in 1506. Originally not a faith based person, he lived the life of the lush, arrogance, and wealth. After getting tired of this life with no meaning, he turned inward to contemplate his destiny and found a new path through the Gospel faith. This became the moment in which he began his missionary effort of caring for the poor, the outcast and the sick of Europe and the Far East. This life story exhibited that healing does come from within which in turn, became the design concept of the site.

 

Starting with the rotunda, it was the goal to connect the interior building to the exterior landscape. This area of the atrium was actually sunken so that visitors upon entry into the lobby, would have a sense of the vista out towards the lake and rest of the site. Water became a major component for representing life, renewal, and healing. So the landscape architects designed a water feature that would start from within the interior atrium and appear to cascade outward into the site, much as Saint Francis' spread of Christianity radiated across three continents. Since evoking the senses is a vital part of healing design, the team wanted visitors to use the tactile sensation to feel the water. At the heart of this atrium was a large granite disk that people could walk right up to experience water as it sheathed over and disappeared into the floor.

 

This large water body on the exterior took a form that was an asymmetrical lake. The origin cascades down toward the site entrance creating a beautiful foreground toward the building from the street. The goal of the new landscape within the campus was to soothe future patients who would come here for outpatient surgeries. The client wanted the entire campus to have a healing effect on the senses, so the retaining walls were designed with rich colored native hacket stones that appeared to come from the earth, while having a battered surface that allowed the flow of water to create a soft "white" noise for comfort.

Laid out in a circulating pattern, the walls and paving seem to spread from the building into the lake and drop-off areas like water's concentric circles. At the upper level of the lake directly outside the building, a lily pond abuts the glass giving one the appearance that the water is continuous through the wall.

 

Adjacent to the building face are two terraces, one for visitors and one for employees. Designed for built-in seating with comfort and privacy, the terraces use flagstone paving contrasted with reed grasses to create texture and definition. The next terrace of the lake acts as a protector and encircles a raised room, termed the healing garden. Here the healing garden specialist stressed the friendly assault of the senses to stimulate the healing process with the use of warm, vivid colors and materials and soothing surfaces in order to put patients and family at ease. With the use of stones and planting, the team created a ground plane that was relaxing and inviting. Fragrant herbs and perennials with tactile leaves also attract butterflies with their bright colorful palettes. A lily pond designed for koi fish bisects the middle of the healing garden. This reinforced that healing is about life and rebirth. At one end of the lily pond is a circular arbor structure of wood that provides shade and privacy for contemplative seating. The introduction of materials like wood and bluestones provides relief against the sterile surrounding corporate buildings.

 

When designing the plant material of the site, the landscape architects looked at the natural drainage patterns of the site. Upon realizing that there is a natural water flow across, they tried to use native materials to recreate the look of a stream running through native Eastern Okalahoma. With the use of indigenous species such as bur oaks, redbuds, and grasses, a layer of landscape ribbons run through the site supplementing the concentric ground patterns. The overall effect of the heart of the campus opened up views from both the street and the existing buildings that once faced stark asphalt displaying a much softer and soothing effect.

 

The next thing to address was the addition of two large parking garages, particularly the one in such close proximity to the new building. None of the consultant team wanted the floors of the new building to face out toward the wall of a garage; so many methods of softening the space were developed. One included construction aids such as a Greenscreen system design over the garage walls to create a fake window facade and further hide the stark concrete and cars. A second design consideration was that the architect stressed the healing importance of providing natural light into the patient recovery rooms on the first floor of the building. Since the garage footprint would abut the back of the building, there was no available space to allow windows in the wall of the first floor. The solution was to create a second floor roof garden with skylight structures to allow natural light through with planting along the garage wall to create a green backdrop. The designers wanted to carry the living element of water onto the roof as well, but since this area was over surgery rooms, it became apparent that the team preferred an abstraction instead. So, through the roof garden runs a curving blue aggregate terrazzo path that undulates like a stream. Marching in a grid are green Japanese maples and bamboo in bright cobalt blue pots with skylights popping up in between. Steel edged planters of varying heights create a maze-like rhythm in the garden eliminating the flat paving planes. At one area stands an acrylic "wave wall" that acts as a translucent privacy barrier between exterior cafe-style seating and interior exam rooms. With a sandblasted texture of horizontal bands, it appears like water that runs over glass window mullions. A hacket stone bench is built into one of the planters to help tie the material palette into the site and provide seating for employees and visitors alike. The entire garden is designed as a raised pavers system that houses all the mechanics and piping beneath but also keeps the weight of design to a minimum for structural purposes. A model and illustrations were created to show the effect to the client.

 

Significance of impact:

The end result of the project design provided a softening effect to what was once a broad expanse of asphalt while utilizing a healing approach to the campus. With the addition of a new building, two parking garages, and a lake, the site that was once cold, uninviting and stark now allows pedestrians to enjoy moving in between buildings. Users of the facility also have a healing haven in which to be enveloped. The two landscape firms charetted together to share construction methodologies, philosophies, and critiques. The design that evolved is much stronger due to the joint effort.