PHOTO TOUR: Legacy ER
Legacy ER in Allen, Texas, operates a hybrid program offering urgent care and 24/7 state-licensed emergency medicine services under one roof. The facility is an 8,432-square-foot building containing triage, exam rooms, urgent care rooms, emergency treatment rooms, x-ray services, CT scan, and a laboratory, along with administrative offices and clinical staff areas. Provisions were also made for a physicians' call/nap room, a double-height staff lounge, and the on-stage/off-stage division between the clinical staff and the patient/public areas. The physician-owners directed 5G Studio Collaborative to design the Allen facility as a potent reflection of the organization’s identity.
On the exterior, the building profile extrapolated the conventional residential roof planes and was given a new tectonic grammar to drive its programmatically driven transformation around the building. Gradient perforated panels were likewise mapped onto the exterior surfaces to allow for diffusive building lighting effects. The interior spaces blur their edges and receive natural and artificial light softly. Multiple skylights are situated at strategic intersections of the circulatory loop to form a system of wayfinding.
Underlying the aesthetic experience is a practical and efficient building layout. The elements of spaces for patient care are carefully composed to reduce errors in the administration of medicine. The annual number of patients is expected to more than double within the next couple of years with a stronger anchoring within the community, as was the case with the group’s sister facility in Frisco, Texas, which now sees more than 25,000 patients per year.