University of Kansas Hospital Authority, Medical Office Building – Kansas City, KS
Project category: New construction (completed July 2011)
Chief Administrator: Mr. Jon Jackson, Senior Vice President, Chief Administrative Office, (913) 588-1289
Firm: Cannon Design, (410) 234-1155
Design team: J. Kent Muirhead, AIA, Project Designer (Cannon Design); Scott R. Thomas Assoc. AIA, Healthcare Planner (Cannon Desisgn); Benjamin Hobbs, Project Manager (Turner Construction); Donald Greenwood, President, Construction Services, MEP Engineering (Burns & McDonnell International); Civil Engineering (Professional Engineering Consultants) Gayle Babcock, Photographer (Architectural Imageworks, LLC)
Photography: Gayle Babcock, Architectural Imageworks, LLC
Total building area (sq. ft.): 214,000
Construction cost/sq. ft.: $341
Total construction cost (excluding land): $73,000,000
Accommodating 400,000 clinic visits a year, the Medical Office Building provides a complete range of ancillary testing and care to ambulatory adult and pediatric patients in a convenient, comfortable environment. The six-story building houses 10 outpatient specialty clinics and provides consolidated office space for more than 200 ambulatory-care physicians and 200 residents previously dispersed throughout the medical center’s campus.
For maximum efficiency, a standard clinic module and a space allocation model, based on physician practices and patient visit volumes, was developed. Thirteen clinic modules, each equipped with 12 exam rooms, reception and support areas, facilitate future adjustments in space assignments. Patient and staff zones are segregated, with separate public and service entries, corridors, and elevators on all levels.
Clad in an aluminum panelized system with punched window openings and aluminum curtainwall, the building shelters a patient drop-off area formed via a notching-out of the first two floors at the southeast corner, enabling cars to drive underneath. Clear signage and new connecting bridges to the main hospital and a 600-car parking garage streamline processes for patients as they park and check in.
The two-story main lobby faces south into the undercover arrival zone. Access from the exterior is provided by a glass enclosed vestibule. Reception and security share a transaction counter directly in front of the vestibule to monitor all access into the facility. Public waiting is situated at the base of the two-story space overlooking the arrival turnaround. An open communicating stair south of the main vertical core provides access to level two. A column-free space, clinic waiting is identical on all the upper levels of the MOB. The tall ceiling height along the glass exterior insures that all these spaces receive a consistent penetration of natural light.
Each floor houses an Art Gallery—providing common space for all the clinics, with shared seating and vending. Its lower ceiling and solid exterior walls create a unique opportunity for art and special graphics. A floor to ceiling window on its south wall has framed views to the exterior.
At the base of this facility, the concourse links the MOB main entry to the existing Bell Hospital main entry, transitioning from level one to ground level.