Michigan

MAS Associates Inc. Albert Khan Associates

The images to the right are taken from a family of proposed ambulatory care facilities under the Mercy Healthcare System umbrella. These facilites will range in size from approximately 60,000 s.f. to just over 150,000 s.f.

The design objective was to develop an architectural vocabulary which could be applied to each building, albeit with varying departmental programs and building sizes, such that the buildings would appear to come from the same family. A kit-of-parts approach was developed. The parts, or components could be used interchangeably to accommodate the different conditions imposed by site, program and scale.

A system for massing the buildings was also developed to keep the apparent size of the facilities within reasonable limits, regardless of the scale of the building. This system expresses a "grain" or building component of a maximum size [5 or 6 bays long by 3 bays wide]with a separate roof expression. This "grain" connects to another such element by way of a glazed link. These links act as spacers to allow for the separation of "grain" and roof expressions. Typically, the front entrance is marked by a tower.