Inspired by an underserved community with few options for medical care or general health services, a team of architects, designers and healthcare leaders set out to create something substantial within the Fifth Ward community in Houston. In May 2017, Legacy Community Health completed the construction of its 29th clinic in southeast Texas.

Designed as an extension of the neighborhood, the $5.5 million center offers affordable, high-quality healthcare to low-income patients, and is equipped to become a medical haven for a healthy, thriving community. The new facility provides comprehensive care to patients, regardless of their ability to pay, including adult primary care, OB/GYN, pediatrics, behavioral health, dental and vision, with a geriatric practice and pharmacy coming soon.

Team leaders envisioned a clinic that served its community in functionality and design. The result is a facility that integrates the personality, diversity, and beauty of the community into a 16,900-square-foot campus. Each step of the project focused on the thoughtful creation of spaces designed to have a positive impact within the community.

Joel Kalmin, Legacy Community Health’s director of facility design, along with Kirksey Architecture (Houston) and D.E. Harvey Builders (Houston), spent three months planning the building’s interior and exterior spaces, using products with a creative mindset to design an inviting and nurturing facility. The project broke ground in October 2016.

The building’s exterior was designed to serve as a significant architectural footing for the community, aiding the neighborhood’s renaissance with a vibrant street scene along Lyons Ave. Houston artist Reginald Adams was commissioned to design a mural on the building’s exterior. Through “community art days,” the mural includes components created by staff and community members, further tying together space and community. The plaza entrance, which faces Lyons Ave., was designed to be a welcoming, inviting area. The front exterior’s clear glazing and large window façade provides passing pedestrians with a visual inside the clinic’s two-story lobby.

Inside the facility, the flooring threads through the building as a part of the tapestry of the mission by representing diversity in simplistic but thoughtful applications. The lobby’s flooring pattern was inspired by a quilt – families in the community, represented by fabrics, are woven together to build the clinic’s foundation. In keeping with the community theme, additional works from local artists Jesse Lott and Tony Parana are displayed throughout the building.

Becoming an integral part of the Fifth Ward is a priority for Legacy Community Health, and this new facility has been designed to meet the needs of its growing community for years to come.

 

Building design team:

Owner: Legacy Community Health 

Architect: Kirksey Architecture

Contractor: D.E. Harvey Builders

Civil Engineer: PRD Land Development

Structural Engineer: Cardno Haynes Whaley

MEP Engineer: CFI Companies Consulting Engineers

Landscape Architect: Bruno Land Design

 

Project source list:

Art/pictures: framed artwork by Unique Arts; custom public art by Reginald Adams, Jesse Lott and Tony Parana

Public Art coordination: Weingarten Art Group

AV equipment/electronics/software: Epson

Carpet/flooring: Patcraft

Ceiling/wall systems: Armstrong

Doors/locks/hardware: DIRTT (slider doors), Schlage (door hardware)

Fabric/textiles: Knoll Inc.

Furniture—seating/casegoods: Knoll Inc./Debner, Staples/Business Advantage, Allsteel/HON

Handrails/wall guards:  Acrovyn, TexTrim

Lighting: Nulite

Signage/wayfinding: NEC Signage

Surfaces—solid/other: Formica, Wilsonart

Wallcoverings: MDC, TRI-KES

Paint: Sherwin Williams

Plumbing fixtures and accessories: Kohler, Sloan, Leonard, McGuire Manufacturing, Bemis, Zurn, Just Manufacturing