Project category: Addition (completed August 2004)

Chief administrator: John I. Gallin, MD, Director Clinical Center, (301) 496-4114

Firm: Zimmer Gunsul Frasca Partnership, (202) 380-3120

Design team: Robert J. Frasca, FAIA, Principal Designer; Robert G. Packard III, Associate AIA, Partner-in-Charge; Margaret W. DeBolt, AIA, Project Manager; Paul J. Engels, AIA, Senior Designer; D. Bartley Guthrie, AIA, Assistant Project Manager

Photography: © National Institutes of Health; © Alan Karchmer

Total building area (sq. ft.): 870,000

Construction cost/sq. ft.: Not released

Total construction cost (excluding land): Not released

The new Mark O. Hatfield Clinical Research Center (CRC) is an 870,000-square-foot addition to the existing 2.5 million-square-foot Warren G. Magnuson Clinical Center (known as Building 10, originally a 500-bed hospital and home of the patient research branches of the 14 Institutes and Centers that comprise the National Institutes of Health). The new CRC is approximately two-thirds inpatient beds (620,000 square feet) and one-third research laboratories (250,000 square feet). The intent is to decant the existing Building 10 of its outmoded laboratories and inpatient facilities and convert the building to basic research. A number of clinical departments were relocated to the new CRC to support the 250-bed/100-day station hospital.

The goal for the CRC is to provide for NIH’s continued focus on translational research while creating a more respectful and convenient experience for patients and their families. Patients are all volunteers coming to the NIH for treatment. Some are referred to participate when all other options for treatment have been exhausted; others are healthy volunteers who contribute their time for the advancement of science.

The design integrates the new CRC with Building 10 while scaling the new building elements to the neighboring community, bringing the entire complex back into harmony with the rest of the campus and neighborhood. Four brick wings, paired around two landscaped courtyards, flank a glass-enclosed, seven-story Science Court atrium, which accommodates public reception and patient admitting, waiting and discharge services, offices for the Patient Representative and NIH Volunteer Services, a café, retail space, and other public services.

Pedestrian bridges connect the addition to Building 10 to create a unified complex. The project includes the development of new vehicular and pedestrian public entrance systems for the CRC from Center Drive, as well as the integration of extensions for the new NIH Campus Loop Road and for many centralized campus infrastructure systems.