The Women’s Center is a landmark facility that houses two primary tenants, Asante Women’s Imaging, and The Women’s Health Center of Southern Oregon. The project prominently features natural materials that emphasize both beauty and durability, and also connect the building with the surrounding context.
Local stone and wood products are featured throughout the exterior and interior of the building. The facade features a high-performance rainscreen system, with metal panels, composite stone panels, and a coursed stone base delineating the building's massing and reflecting the interior spaces.
The team developed an innovative concept that maintains patient privacy and a feeling of a safe and comfortable environment while bringing in peripheral daylight in the form of transoms, skylights, and clerestory windows. The two-story lobby is wrapped with a glazed curtainwall, and topped with a wood ceiling that accentuates the entry. Just inside the entry is an area where the visitors can wait in a comfortable and dynamic space that connects the indoors directly to adjacent gardens.
The facility has a water feature that uses reclaimed roof water in a fore-garden. The building is buffered by ornamental and functional swales allowing for natural drainage. Local river beds were the influence for the design of the natural swales and vegetation. The landscaping for the grounds is an attractive amenity that allows for direct interaction between inside and outside for visitors, patients, and staff. The form of the building utilizes retaining walls that are an extension of the architecture, and that embrace the surrounding landscape. This, combined with the transparent facade gives one the impression from within the building that you are sitting in an outdoor landscape.
The LEED Silver Certified features include: highly efficient HVAC, state of the art efficient lighting and controls including dimmable LED site lighting, electric car charging station and HOV parking, green power, local sustainable recycled and low VOC materials, air quality monitoring, storm water on-site management, and green building education.
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