Completed in 2018, Hennepin County Medical Center’s newest addition is a six-story building that consolidates over 40 primary and specialty clinics. These clinics are currently spread over nine buildings. Designed by Minnesota-based architects, BWBR, the new building emerged as the largest teaching hospital in the Twin Cities region. Working closely with manufacturers Pure + Freeform, BWBR was able to develop a design that was as aesthetically pleasing as it was functional. The building’s exterior takes on a stunning, modern appearance, with Lumiflon-coated metal panels enveloping the entire site.
BWBR’s design team attributes much of their success to their collaboration with Pure + Freeform, stating, “The early and constant collaboration was, in fact, what allowed BWBR to comfortably select and realistically defend a more radical solution to represent the character of the client and their facility.”
Finalizing the corten-like patterning featured on the panels was a painstaking effort between the architects and the designers. Pure + Freeform described their process, explaining, “The process included the panels and how each condition would affect the perceived color, texture, or pattern. There is also a custom wood grain finish, for which we played with scale so that the pattern would be visible from the users’ point of view. By the end of our design process, we had completed five rounds of proofs and matching to arrive at the final design.”
The metal panel cladding was printed over and given a Lumiflon topcoat, the ideal coating system for high exposure buildings. Lumiflon FEVE resin technology, a high-performance fluoropolymer, offers countless benefits which range from exceptional weatherability to color and gloss retention. The advanced FEVE resin technology Lumiflon provides allows a coating to remain intact for decades eliminating the need to recoat.
Information courtesy of Arch Paper
Categories Architecture