Harris Methodist Heart Center

Designers of the new heart center at Harris Methodist Fort Worth Hospital in Texas, strove to make the new facility warm, intimate and bright. The facility celebrates its grand opening this month after more than a year and half of construction.

“The building overall has a boutique or hotel feel, with one-story hallways and daylighting at the end of all patient corridors,” says Jeff Stouffer, principal designer of HKS Inc. in Dallas. “The goal is to help reduce stress on patients and families by having color and connection to the outside.”

The center’s design achieves that through large glass openings that bring natural light inside and allow patients a view of downtown Fort Worth, Stouffer says.

Designers faced additional challenges blending the five-story, $33 million facility into the existing campus that includes buildings dating back to the 1920s, Stouffer says. The brick and stone reflect the original structures, but the large glass lites diverge from the small punched openings in the older buildings.

David Griffin, project manager from contract glazier DGB Glass in Fort Worth, says false mullions were applied on large lites, measuring up to 8 by 7 feet, to replicate smaller lites. “They look like smaller lites,” he says. “The brick blends with the old part of the campus, but the glazing makes it look modern.”

The building also features more than 4,000 square feet of custom-colored Alucobond composite panels from Alcan Composites USA Inc. in St. Louis.

Kawneer North America of Norcross, Ga., provided the curtain wall. The 1-inch insulating glass features Solarban 60 coating from Pittsburgh’s PPG Industries Inc. to control solar heat gain. Centex Construction in Dallas was the general contractor, and Arch Aluminum & Glass Co., also in Dallas, supplied the glass.