Comprised of a 44,200 sq.-ft. Critical Access Hospital and a 14,200-sq.-ft. MOB / Administration Unit, Rooks County Health Center is a modern, state-of-the-art, replacement hospital facility.

Structural and architectural features include a clerestory pop-up at the MOB waiting area with a two-tier hip roof, a vaulted atrium containing a two-story volume with steel tube scissor trusses, and a two-story circular silo located near the surgery area, which serves as sleeping quarters for the on-call doctor.  Many of the windows were shaded by awnings that were supported by steel tube tree shapes.  The entrance to the lobby atrium was through a skewed concrete tunnel that pierced the full-height glass curtain wall.  The entry glass curtain wall required an independent structural backup frame.

Typically, product literature for surgical light fixtures assumes that the fixture will be anchored to a solid concrete slab.  Since the roof structure that the surgical light fixtures were to mount to was composed of light, open-web steel joists and metal deck, and considering the strict deflect limits required by the manufacture for the boom-mounted surgical lights, special surgical light anchor framing was designed and detailed.

Exterior canopies supported by “tree-shaped” steel tube columns (column shapes with a single steel tube trunk and three steel tube branches that splayed out from the single-tube trunk at approximately mid-height of the column) were designed for the main entrance and the emergency entrance.
 

Construction Cost:  $13.3 million
Completion:  2007
Architect:  Miller Architects

Photos courtesy Lance Harris

Rooks County Health Center
Plainville, Kansas