The project assignment was to design a prototype Critical Access Hospital that operates on lean principles and accommodate a range of services in a minimal, flexible, and cost effective facility. Located in rural South Carolina, Edgefield is the last place one would expect to find a state of the art healthcare facility. However, this new Critical Access Hospital will help accommodate the underserved population of its community.
This public structure became an abstract pendant towards the center of town, a glass cladded system that hangs from organic interwoven steel tube shapes that begin to blend in with the landscape while also standing out as a beacon of public interaction.
In order to bring the experience of scale to a more human proportion, the building grew out of the sloping site, creating landscaped roofs that merge the outdoors in and the hospital out toward the town.
This form of programmatic mixing provides a variety of spaces, ranging from intimate to monumental, and provides accessible roofscapes that carry and blend function to the outdoors while engaging the surrounding context. By breaking down the barriers formed by typical divisions of unit typologies and creating a plan that allows for cross flow on both patient and staff throughout the facility there is an opportunity to create a minimal building area.
[Run Gallery Manager]
