Authors Hank Adams, AIA, and Chuck Armstrong, AIA, from the new Parkland Hospital design team of HDR + Corgan, share the process their team went through to create the facility's master plan in HEALTHCARE DESIGN's four-part online exclusive series. The design team simultaneously executed both the master planning and hospital schematic design processes to achieve a completely integrated design solution. In the third installment of the series, Adams and Armstrong discuss the hospital's new program statement.

The new Parkland Hospital program statement The new Parkland Hospital is the third phase in the evolution of this historic medical center. The original Parkland Version 1.0 was built in 1893, while Parkland Version 2.0, the current hospital, was built in 1954. Parkland Version 3.0 is projected to be complete in 2014.

Parkland serves as the public hospital for Dallas County (population 2.4 million). It operates a system of 11 community-oriented primary care clinics throughout the county. It is a Level I trauma center and has the only burn unit in North Texas. Parkland operates a Level III neonatal intensive care unit (NICU). Twenty-seven languages are spoken at the hospital, representing the diversity of the community it serves.

Programming for the new hospital calls for:

  • 1.9 million square feet;
  • 862 private adult beds;
  • 96 NICU beds;
  • 108 emergency rooms;
  • 24 operating rooms;
  • A 387,000-square-foot clinic;
  • A 269,000 square feet of administrative space;
  • Parking for 1,800 new staff and 2,000 patients/visitors; and
  • A central utility plant.

The building massing, while iconic, is a rational expression of Parkland’s requirements. The final massing was determined by a series of design moves.

1. Labor/delivery and surgery programmed to be on the same level. This established the footprint of the diagnostic and treatment base.

2. A vertical relationship was established between the emergency department on the ground level and imaging located directly above.

3. The Texas Department of State Health Services requires all patients to have access to natural light. Including all private room NICUs made it necessary to depress roof courts into the mass allowing for additional perimeter windows.

4. Main public circulation was added to the on-stage perimeter, connecting walkways to the Women and Infants Specialty Health (WISH) clinic, medical/surgical clinic and UTSW buildings, and to the existing campus.

5. A main patient and service elevator was inserted to serve as the pivot point for the two bed towers, allowing the central core to provide a link to all floors from the rooftop helipads to the emergency department on the ground.

6. The WISH patient tower pivots over the entry boulevard and is connected vertically with centrally located public elevators.

The building’s design is described as “a bold essay in geometry,” with alternate horizontal and vertical masses. Its four-story base includes main and emergency entrances, and will be capped by the nine-story WISH tower oriented one way and a 17-story tower at a right angle. Glass curtainwalls are designed to shade gradually, both horizontally and vertically, from dark gray to white.

Visitors and patients will enter the hospital through a three-story lobby and travel on "obvious paths" to public areas of the hospital, including the emergency room, cafeteria, gift shop, and chapel. Each patient floor will accommodate two 36-bed units, built end to end with nursing alcoves tucked along the 300-foot-long hallways. All patient rooms are sized to be acuity adaptable, allowing a room's function to change from medical to surgical to intensive care.

The building is targeting LEED Silver certification. Sustainable design elements include:

  • Using daylight harvesting in patient rooms and public spaces to increase energy efficiency;
  • Orienting the building on the site to efficiently manage and control solar heat gain;
  • Maximizing energy efficiency through building systems and controls;
  • Taking full advantage of access to public transportation through adjacency to the new DART Green Line Southwestern Medical Parkland station and bike paths;
  • Collecting rain water to be recycled for landscape irrigation; and
  • Reducing the carbon footprint through the use of recycled, local building materials to reduce the carbon footprint.

Check back on healthcaredesignmagazine.com for the fourth and final installment of this online exclusive series on the new Parkland Hopsital to hear how the multidisciplinary team established a strong design vision for the facility. To read the first article in the series, go here. To read the second part, go here. Hank Adams is Vice President and Healthcare Principal with HDR Architecture. Chuck Armstrong is Principal with Corgan Associates. HDR + Corgan is the joint venture design team for the new Parkland Hospital project. For more information about the Parkland Hospital project, please visit http://newparkland.parklandhospital.com/ . Photo Credit: © HDR + Corgan