Credit: Terry Poe Photography / poephoto.com
Credit: steve wanke
The Salem Hospital in Salem, Ore., has been in operation since 1896, when it was known as Salem General Hospital. During the span of the past century, the hospital’s facilities have grown and evolved from its original single-building home to the 9-building campus it occupies today.
Expansion has happened one building at a time, with little attention paid to aesthetic unity. Each building was designed with its own look and nothing tied the facilities together visually. This changed in 2006 when the hospital decided to expand the campus with a new 7-story, 360,000-square-foot tower. The owners wanted to provide a positive healing environment for patients. The design team was given the task of creating a comforting, human-scale facility that would unite the campus.
“The existing hospital campus is really a series of buildings done by different architects that had no true interrelationship with one another,” explains Jeffrey Stouffer, AIA, principal of Dallas-based HKS Architects. “The buildings were connected physically, but they didn’t relate aesthetically or with materials or colors. Every designer tried to make their own stamp. One of the main things the owner charged us with was to bring all the buildings together with the new addition.”
When searching for a common element to serve as a connection between the hospital’s facilities, HKS looked to metal. “Metal gave us our punctuating elements,” Stouffer explains. “The metal is a major building element that ties three of the buildings together. We utilized the rain screen to signify the different patient unit clusters. It’s really the dominant vertical element in the building.”
Blame It on the Rain
The metal composite material rain screen was chosen as much for practical reasons as it was for the unifying aesthetic. “The owners were looking for a low-maintenance, long-term shell package that was going to hold up against inclimate weather here in the Northwest,” says Bob Carson, project superintendent with Salem Heating & Sheet Metal, Salem, the installer and fabricator of the metal on the hospital project. By utilizing a rain screen as part of the design, not only was the hospital given a distinctive look, it also provided the moisture management and low-maintenance the hospital was looking for.
Credit: steve wanke
“In Oregon, we don’t get a huge amount of total rainfall, but we have a long rainy season that begins in early fall and runs through late spring,” Carson says. “We don’t get the kind of severe weather that places like Florida do, but we do have a constant steady drizzle through the winter months. These buildings constantly are being tested by the weather.”
According to Carson, who has worked a number of previous jobs for the Salem Hospital campus, there have been some bad experiences with other types of wall systems utilized in the region. “Owners have been looking for alternatives that are not going to be a problem 10, 15 or 20 years down the road,” he says. “That’s what compelled the hospital to entertain the rain screen system and so far it has proven to be a very reliable, satisfying product. It gives a very nice present-age appearance and maintains that look over the years.”
The idea of the rain screen basically is to accommodate and control the water that falls on the exterior of the building, rather than simply try to block it out. “The system is designed to channel and manage the water,” Carson explains. By controlling the flow of the rainfall on the exterior, the structure directs moisture outward where it won’t harm the building itself.
Integrated Design
Metal on the exterior was used as an aesthetic bridge between the buildings, and also was used on the skybridges that serve as a physical connection between the hospital’s facilities. “There were four skybridges and we added three more,” Stouffer recalls. “They obviously connect the buildings physically, but they really do help visually create that unified look. One of the challenges is that one of the bridges goes right through an existing building. The metal on that building is the color we were matching.”
The new 7-story, 360,000-square-foot tower on the Salem Hospital campus in Salem, Ore., was designed by HKS Architects, Dallas, hks.hksinc.com. The project’s general contractor was Turner Construction, Portland, Ore., www.turnerconstruction.com. Fabrication and installation of the rain screen system was done by Salem Heating & Sheet Metal, Salem, www.salemheatinginc.com.
The hospital project utilized approximately 38,000 square feet of Citadel Envelope 2000 Rain Screen MCM panels from Citadel Architectural Products, Indianapolis, www.citadelap.com. In addition, approximately 17,000 square feet of Citadel GlazeGuard 1000 glazing infill panels finished in Seafoam Green and Sunstorm, also from Citadel Architectural Products, were installed by Mountain Glass, Canby, Ore., www.mtnglass.com.
“The skybridges had to work with the new and existing buildings and we were able to match color and product,” Carson explains. “There was the aluminum composite material product we put in 10 years ago, and we were adding this new metal across the road. They met up and you can’t even tell the difference.”
Matching the metals of then and now was only one of the challenges faced on the project. Some were related to the design and construction itself, and others—such as the fact that the campus was open and active during construction and special considerations needed to be made for public safety—were at a more human scale. But with some ingenuity and close coordination, the team was able to overcome anything that came its way.
“There were times when we had to pull a rabbit out of the hat,” Carson says. “You have to be a little creative in your designing. Deflection is always an issue and seismic concerns are always an issue, but with the rain screen system, especially with the rout and return, we had great flexibility. Where I had a deflection joint, I just increased my gap to accommodate the specified dimension and made a spline that was a different size. To the naked eye it all looks the same.”
Carson further asserts that the flexibility offered by the metal rain screen was vital to the success of the project. “This product was the most versatile in terms of overcoming obstacles,” he explains. “We had concave elements, we had convex elements, we had flat-planed, we had ellipticals—the math on the project was incredible. The material is pretty forgiving when you do the math and plan ahead. Communication and coordination with the other trades is so critical.”
“The integrated approach really helps the process because when we encounter challenges, we have the team in place so we can react, get things accomplished and come out with the best outcome,” Stouffer says. “Instead of focusing on the problem, we were able to focus on the solutions.”
Form and Function
The building opened in May 2009, and has been very well received. “I received a letter from the hospital’s CEO recently,” Stouffer says. “He says the building is a great balance between the functional and the aesthetic. We achieved the balance between design and functionality, something that is not easy to achieve on hospital projects.”
Most importantly, the rain screen design has held up, both protecting the building and maintaining the desired look. “It’s become a landmark right in the middle of the community. It’s a great campus,” Carson says. “All in all, it’s been great. We’ve had some terrible weather since this project was finished. We’re in the midst of our second winter and get some pretty torrential rainstorms here, but so far, so good.”
Having approached the entire project as a team, all the participants feel great pride in a job well done. “It definitely was a mix of trying to improve that patient experience and the staff experience and to make use of the appropriate design and materials,” Stouffer says. “The metal was a huge, important complement to this building. Actually, it wasn’t a complement—it was an integral piece.”
Credit: steve wanke