American military members wear bars on their dress uniforms to represent years of service, rank, special units, achievements, and valour. Even those outside the military recognize that these ribbons, awards, and medals have special significance.
The architects at LEO A DALY used these colourful bars as inspiration for the western elevation of the Ambulatory Care Center on the campus of the Omaha VA Medical Centre in Omaha, Nebraska, U.S.A.
With the windows stacked in four rows of coloured glass, the 157,000-square-foot, three-story care centre’s western facade resembles an officer’s multitiered colour bar. Like the decorations that adorn that bar, the windows are all the same height but vary in width and colour.
To create this look, as many as a dozen Vanceva® PVB interlayers were used in varying shades of red, plum, purple, light aqua, dark aqua, blue, Kelly green, dark green, yellow, harvest gold, and orange. The glass used for the project was 6-mm clear HS VE-2M #2 for the interior and exterior panes with 13.2-mm VTS Black Finish-Argon, 90% fill-black silicone, and 6-mm Clear HS with four layers of 0.015 Vanceva PVB interlayers.
To test how natural light filtered throughout the day and affected interior spaces, the architects taped colour samples to their office windows in multiple combinations. They evaluated single interlayer colours along with combinations of interlayers to create colours not available in single-layer samples. Matching them in random combinations was key to achieving an interesting and believable rhythm that supported the design concept.
As a result, the colourful bars are enjoyed inside and outside the facility. As the day begins and ends, the sunlight pushes the interlayer colours onto walls and floors, enveloping pathways and rooms in mood-lifting ribbons of colour.
As the newly built care centre exemplifies, medical facilities for service veterans have come a long way in design. Gone are the days of austere, rectangular brick buildings. Omaha’s care centre is rich in patriotic symbolism, including a primary facade that features a folded-glass curtain wall to mimic a flag waving in the wind.
Both the flag-shaped window wall and the colour-bar facade allow an abundance of natural light to brighten the interior and, according to a design team member from LEO A DALY, “foster feelings of comfort, refuge, and reflection.”
The care centre has eight primary care clinics, including one exclusively dedicated to women veterans. In addition, there is a multifaceted specialty care clinic, an outpatient surgery suite, and a private, exterior healing garden that allows veterans and their families a quiet place for reflection. Service members are treated in a facility that not only helps them heal physically but emotionally and spiritually as well.
The Ambulatory Care Centre received Glass Magazine Awards’ Best Protective Glazing Project in 2021 and was named an honouree in Interior Design’s Best of Year award in the category of healthcare.
Photo credit: ® AJ Brown Imaging