Project Description
Three prominent Memphis orthopedic practices joined forces to offer a more comprehensive and integrated experience for patients. Tabor Orthopedics, Memphis Orthopedic Group, and MSK Group had a vision for a new Bartlett, TN office that would be convenient to their collective patients, with the ability to offer clinic, x-ray, physical therapy, and MRI services all under one roof. The site is located across from St. Francis Hospital, within an industrially zoned subdivision. This location met the clients’ needs for accessibility and programmatic adjacencies but was otherwise a wasteland of parking and large, undistinguished warehouse buildings. Within this suburban context, the building is sited to have an energetic presence on the street, while still accommodating the municipality’s hefty parking requirements which are softened by rolling topography and lush, unstructured landscaping. A volume of subtly reflective oversized brick pairs with a fiber-cement rain-screen and steel shading devices, setting the building apart from its neighbors and reflects the clients’ rigor, professionalism, and security. Four internal ‘light corridors,” organize the building layout and puncture the building’s exterior with glass walls curtained by steel angle screens. These light corridors converge in the center of the building, with a small treed courtyard, serving as a privacy screen and orientation marker, filtering natural light into the heart of the building. Richly textured, wood-clad volumes denote areas of service to patients and further populate the building’s intuitive wayfinding scheme. A pallet of subdued, cleanable surfaces and textured acoustical foam panels give way to exposed ceiling gathering and circulation spaces, washed in a subtle blue color evocative of the sky.