This 31,000 s.f. facility serves as both an urgent care center and a specialist clinic for a new development in northern Fort Worth, Texas. It was designed to fill the needs of the current residential growth in the surrounding area, while keeping its future in mind as it is slated to transform into a key children’s hospital and ED years down the line.

The urgent care center consists of 13 exam rooms, two trauma rooms, one x-ray room, and provisions for a future lab, pharmacy, and CT. The specialty clinic houses orthopedics, behavioral health, ENT, and a pod of exam rooms with rotational specialists. The design is modular to allow ease of future construction when the building transitions, with modern aesthetics, use of cool colors, and the hint of a Mondrian motif repeated throughout.

The design of the interior spaces was driven by a week-long 3P event. The design team worked side-by-side with 30 Cook Children’s staff to develop full-scale cardboard mock-ups of their new Cook Children’s Alliance campus which will feature an urgent care center, imaging, orthopedics & sports medicine, cardiology, ENT, and psychology.

Prior to the 3P event, the design team disseminated questionnaires to staff and parents as well as conducted patient and staff focus groups to gain insight on their needs and wants for their new campus. Reoccurring themes among patients included concerns about safety and infection control, separating the high acuity patients from the low acuity patients, and reducing stress and anxiety for their children. For staff, a dominant concern was providing staff only restrooms in convenient locations throughout the new clinic.

Using these findings as guides, the 3P team built, tested, revised, and perfected their design throughout the week. Simulations with staff and Cook Children’s patients allowed the team to develop their ideal flows and optimize the design for their unique way of working.