Columbus, Ohio
Medical Center Addition
A double-height glass lobby and a new front facade give an older single-story brick medical building in Columbus, Ohio, a clear entrance and a new identity.
The project
This older single-story brick medical building in Columbus never had much of a front door. Arcfluence's addition puts a double-height glass lobby and a new facade across the front, a small addition with an outsized effect on how the whole building reads.
A large building without a clear entrance
The existing building gives visitors little help. From the parking lot there is no obvious place to go in, and for a medical building that matters. Patients and the people dropping them off should not have to hunt for the door.
The goal was to bring the building's appearance up to date and, more practically, to give it a front.
The older building needed a front door.
The addition is that door.
A double-height glass lobby at the front
The addition places a double-height lobby at the front of the building. Its height and glass make it readable from the parking lot and the drop-off, so the entrance is obvious well before anyone reaches it. A second entrance is part of the same design, and the addition also brings new office space.
Glass, steel and concrete against brick
The new front does not try to match the old brick. It is a contemporary facade of glass, steel and concrete, deliberately different from the building behind it. That contrast is what gives the building a new identity. From the approach, the new front is what people see and remember.
The addition is modest in size compared with the building it serves. Most of its value comes from where it sits and what it tells a visitor.
Separate paths for drop-off and parking
A clear entrance only helps if the route to it is clear. The site plan reworks circulation in the parking lot so that drivers dropping someone off have a place to go, and drivers who are parking have a place to park. Separating the two makes the building easier to run as a medical facility.
Offices, restrooms and systems tied into the existing building
Behind the facade, the addition carries offices and accessible restrooms, and its structure and MEP systems have to connect to an existing building. Arcfluence coordinated the architectural, structural and MEP work in one drawing set.