Healthcare Design - April 2017 - 26

APRIL 2017

High-efficiency LEDs
bring CHOSA's
façade to life each
evening. The colorful
glass, which is visible
from both inside and
outside the building,
draws its hues from
the building's existing
mural, shown here.

HCDMAGAZINE.COM

The eight-story mural
on the hospital's south
side, called "The Spirit
of Healing," was a community landmark long
before the expansion
and renovation, so
preserving it was a must.
But architects went much
further, drawing on the
work's orange, red,
blue, and purple tones to
design a striking facelift
for the façade.
Glaziers from Sharp
Glass (San Antonio)
installed 987 U-shaped
pieces of ceramic-fritted
channel glass to create
a multicolored effect,
which is LED-backlit at
night. To avoid the need
for unsightly scaffolding,
a special hoisting and
installation procedure
was custom-designed
for the project, allowing
the glass channels to be
preassembled in groups
of three, pulled with
cranes, and, ultimately,
pivoted and aligned.
Minimalistic aluminum

head receptors on the
underside of the façade's
concrete "eyebrows"
help to lock each piece
into place.
Installers completed
about a floor per day
over several weeks. The
resulting design not only
highlights the hospital's
well-loved mural-and
its faith-based mission-
but can withstand wind
loads of 25 pounds
per square foot and is
weather- and scratchresistant.
Before the project,
Kris Feldmann, former
project manager and
architect at Overland
Partners, says everything was pretty much
beige. "While functionally they could operate,
the interior didn't give
off a children's hospital
vibe," says Feldmann.
"That was one of the
strong reasons for
introducing color to the
façade."

BENDHEIM

Robin Donovan is a freelance writer and editor
based in Portland, Ore. She can be reached at
R K D O N O VA N @ G M A I L . C O M .

DIVINE
INSPIRATION

water and reference the local San Antonio River
to assist with wayfinding and create a welcoming, modern aesthetic.
The most striking illustration of this concept
is on the new ground-floor and second-floor lobbies, where plastic resin "ribs" routed in curving contours (reminiscent of the river cutting
through a valley) jut out from a backdrop of a river
map. Color-changing LEDs along the wall, which
leads from the entrance to nearby elevators, slowly shift from greens to blues and purples, creating
a "living, breathing river" flowing through the
space, says Godfrey Gaisie, an associate at SBS.
The design even performs a dual function: Flattened sections among
the protruding ribs
A MURAL ON THE
house donor recognition plaques as well as
EXTERIOR WAS
placeholders (with inPRESERVED AND
spirational quotes) for
PROVIDED INSPIRATION
future donors.
Elevator bays on the
FOR THE BUILDING'S
patient floors have
COLOR PALETTE.
their own river wall
depicting various regions along the San Antonio River, and artwork
on the associated floors represents the same
region so visitors can learn a bit about the city,
too. In the nurses' stations, standard rectangular desks were swapped out for nautilus-shaped
workspaces with textured wood-laminate
curved panels on the front and set atop colorful
flooring in rounded shapes, reminiscent of oversized bubbles. The river theme even carries into
the new ground-floor chapel, which is shaped to
resemble spinning whirlpools.
A mural on the exterior, called "The Spirit of
Healing," was preserved during the project and
provided inspiration for the building's color palette, including the exterior channel glass, interior
river wall, and flooring. (For more details, read
"Divine Inspiration" at right.)
Throughout all of these changes and upgrades,
the need for a thread of continuity between
the mission of the original religious order that
founded the hospital and its present-day work as
a nonprofit hospital was never lost. "We wanted
to create a resource for the city of San Antonio
that would reach out to any and all, and take all
children that needed help," Gilger says. 

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Healthcare Design - April 2017

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