Nicholas Torres

Challenge

Design of a 30,000 SF addition & renovation for a modern Level III Trauma Center in a historic town center on a tight site designed with elements of a historic homestead on the site.

 

Vision

Expanding the existing undersized and outdated emergency department at Tobey Hospital created several challenges most notably the grade difference from street level to hospital level and the positioning of the historic Tobey Homestead. Unfortunately the homestead needed to be removed to adequately accommodate ambulance to the site and degraded structure caused by a fire in the 1980s. We took design elements from the homestead and the existing hospital and fused them together into both exterior and interior design trying to adapt the parti of second empire era home into a modern hospital building. The overall building form is composed of white fiber cement siding in a tripartite formation similar to the homestead, a "front porch", black mullion divided windows, and brick towers representing the hospital poking through. Together these create a familiar yet modern face for the modernization of the hospital facing historic Wareham Center. Physical elements able to be salvaged from the homestead are incorporated in the main lobby and cafe. An extensive laser survey of the homestead was done to digitize the building for future generations. On the inside the LEAN processed was used with direct design input from staff to design a unified and efficient floor plan. We also took advantage of the low floor to floor heights in the existing hospital by skipping a floor and creating a clerestory space with natural light for the ED, unlike most ED which are low ceiling confusing mazes. 

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My Involvement

• Project Concept & Parti

• Site Planning

• Town Regulatory Meetings

• Development of Schematic, Design Development, & Construction Documents

• Department of Public Health review and document preparation