Legacy ER at Allen

Running a hybrid program comprising of Urgent Care and 24/7 state-licensed Emergency Room functions, Legacy ER aims to advance community access to high-quality healthcare services by positioning the architectural significance of its facility into direct alignment with its goal of elevating the patient care experience to an unprecedented level. The facility is an 8,432 SF building containing (1) Triage, (3) Exam Rooms, (5) Urgent Care Rooms, (2) Emergency Treatment Rooms, (1) X-Ray Room, and (1) CT-Scan Room, along with Administrative Offices and Clinical Staff Areas. Provisions were made for a Physicians' Call / Nap Room, a hospitable double-height Staff Lounge, and the On-Stage / Off-Stage division between the Clinical Staff and the Patient / Public.

The conceptual framework seeks to capture in aesthetic terms the duality of the emergency medical professional characters and the brand they represent, projecting outwardly the knowledge, skill, precision, and decisiveness necessary for the practice of emergency medicine, and reflecting inwardly the gentle, empathic, and humanistic qualities of the persons beneath the robe. It is realized simply through an architectural montage of sharply folded exterior robe of zinc panels and softly sculpted interior plastered planes. The points of admission of natural daylight and outdoor views create apertures that penetrate through the building envelope and interior planes and elucidate those intersecting tectonic moments.

The project site is previously an open pasture surrounded by commercially-driven suburban residential subdivisions, chain stores, and strip centers lacking any identity of place. The project challenges the chronically lethargic context through an episodic architectural intervention that seeks to positively influence the environment beyond its lot line.

The landscape design strategies introduce an exemplary way of reconciliation between nature and man-made settings prevalent to the locality. Native, adaptive vegetation with low water demands and subtle grading of land were used as design elements to evoke memories of natural landscape forms. The soft and hard landscape elements seamlessly dissolve their boundaries along the public domain.

The building's crisp edge profile was defined through an observation of the typical residential roof planes and was given a new tectonic vocabulary which enabled its programmatically-driven transformation around the building. Zinc, being the most sustainably-sourced metals for construction, was selected for its inherent greyish-blue warmth and resiliency during extreme Texas weather events. Using the ordinary interlocking method of a standing seam roof, the zinc panels were diagrammed in accordance to the planar parameters of the folded planes to achieve the eventual patterning while satisfying a solar shading program. Gradient perforated panels were likewise mapped onto the exterior surfaces to allow for the diffusive building lighting effects.

Relating in contrast to the precise geometry of the exterior, the interior spaces are designed to blur edges and to receive natural and artificial light softly. Multiple skylights are situated at strategic intersections of the circulatory loop to form a sensible system of way-finding. The atmospheric quality of the interior continually morphs in response to the natural climatic conditions. The detailing of the interior skylights read as frameless apertures that puncture and stitch with the exterior membrane.

The distinctive architecture has transformed the community it entered and transcended the program by introducing the architectural poeticsreflecting upon the position a community-centric freestanding emergency medical care facility.

Located amongst suburban neighborhoods and generic chain stores in Allen, Texas, a community located about 30 miles north of Dallas, a building clad in metal and glass stands apart from its surroundings.  That building, Legacy ER, a freestanding emergency room and urgent care facility, is an example of the progressive architecture that is seeping into the medical community.

Designed by 5G Studio Collaborative, Legacy ER is aiming to be everything that the typical medical facility is not. A freestanding emergency care center, the 8,500-square-foot clinic wants to take a modern approach. According to the founding partner, the updated design resonates with potential patients who are seeking a technologically-advanced option. They found that if the building is dingy and dull, the patient will question the doctors’ medical knowledge.

Legacy ER offers two primary services that made the building design critical to its success: serving as a less critical urgent care facility as well as an emergency medicine center.  The design team was tasked to create a fusion that maintains the identity of both offerings, and also promotes a soothing and gentle environment. The team divided the space in half—one side dedicated to the emergency care and the other to the urgent care services. The building features two rooms for trauma, six for emergency exams and five for urgent care needs, in addition to spaces for radiology imaging, a laboratory and various support functions. With 11 beds the building can accommodate over 100 patients per day.

The simplified design creates a subconscious calming effect, but it was vital to the owners that the space had ample natural light. Not only did they believe that having natural light makes jobs more enjoyable, it also helps the healing process. To achieve this the team used several products from YKK AP America. Two curtain wall products, the YCW 750 SSG and YCW 750 SplineTech, were installed to allow in natural light. The project also included the 35D entrance door.

The YKK AP products helped set the necessary ambiance to offer a new perspective to the union of the two clinic styles. YKK AP America engaged in an opportunity to lead in the health care market industry with its growing emphasis on sustainability and energy-efficiency. Legacy ER opened in February 2013 with positive reviews and high acclaim.