Environments for Aging - Fall 2020 - 11

buildings so they had a highly visible presence,
whether patients were approaching from north,
south, east, or west, and offering a convenient
surface parking solution, Burnette says. "It
was also a matter of rightsizing both building
programs and getting the right mix vertically,"
he adds. For example, the CAHB was originally
planned for five stories, but through using
slightly larger floor plates the team got the facility down to four.
With a plan in place, the team then had to
address how to create a visual link between
the two buildings while also giving them both
distinct identities to avoid any confusion.

Along with their varying heights, the buildings
are distinguished through subtle exterior
material differences, including regional
fieldstone on the hotel that ties in with the
material palette used throughout The Villages
and warm brick for the CAHB. Furthermore,
the healthcare facility features wide bands of
glass while the hotel uses single windows,
both more typical window patterns for their
respective building types.
Although open to the public, CAHB was
designed first and foremost with The Villages'
residents in mind. While most of the population

Above: A shared outdoor courtyard with open-air dining supports the coffee shop within the CAHB as well
as event space for the hotel, creating a physical connection with the covered walkway to the two facilities.
Opposite: The exterior of the Center for Advanced Healthcare at Brownwood features a predominant use of brick
and glass and wide-band window patterning to help distinguish it from the adjoined Brownwood Hotel & Spa (on
right), which has a more textured fieldstone exterior and individual windows typical of a hotel.
currently lives to the north of the campus, the
buildings had to accommodate future growth
to the south side, as well. "We needed to
design the building so it was accessible from
both directions," says Burnette. The solution
for CAHB was two main entrance doors: one
on the north side and one on the south, with a
two-story lobby in the center of the healthcare
facility to function as a wayfinding reference
point and "as a place to meet, come back
to, and reconnect after the appointments or
procedures," Burnette says.
Both the CAHB and hotel were designed
to conjure the "spirit of the Floridian Cowboy,"
an established theme for the town center at

Brownwood, says Jarred Bobo, senior interior
design manager at ESa (Nashville), who collaborated closely with Morse and her team as the
interior designer for both buildings. Specifically,
visual ties between the more subdued CAHB
and the bolder design of the hotel include
cowhide print vinyl upholstery (on headboards
in guestrooms and on seating in the CAHB),
rustic wood accents on the lighting and ceilings, and vinyl wallcovering patterns including
a bold turquoise and red used in the CAHB.
Used sparingly and only in the public areas,
the pattern is "reminiscent of patterns seen on
hand-woven saddle pads and blankets used
on cattle ranches," says Bobo, tying back to
the Brownwood theme and the color palette of
the hotel, where red is used extensively.
For the CAHB, specifically, the interiors
maintained the existing aesthetic of the healthcare centers at The Villages, which have an eye
on creating a residential experience that's more
on the scale of a small hospitality project than a
doctor's office. As a starting place, the CAHB's
color palette of turquoise, creamy neutrals,
and brown evolved directly from the hotel spa.
The facility's public areas offer lots of natural
light; plush, hospitality-inspired furniture; and
large-scale custom lights. "We wanted people
to walk in and feel comfortable," says Morse.
In fact, helping patients feel "at home" was
at the heart of the design for this healthcare
facility. "The goal was to make the CAHB feel
calming, relaxing, and welcoming," Bobo
says.-Joann Plockova, freelance writer. This
article was originally published in the September 2020 issue of Healthcare Design magazine.

The two-story south entry lobby for the outpatient facility utilizes the color palette of the hotel's spa to create a
welcoming, calming environment.
Fall 2020 * EFAmagazine.com

http://www.EFAmagazine.com

Environments for Aging - Fall 2020

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