UNM Cancer Center

A Special Hospital Offers Comfort and Care

By Neal Singer

University of New Mexico’s $53.2 million Cancer Research and Treatment Center will offer 190,000 sq ft of innovative facilities designed to promote comfort and tranquility to families and patients during stressful treatments.

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When someone is facing cancer, he or she wants the best doctors and machines along with a pleasant, healing environment.

That’s the driving philosophy behind the design and construction of the five-story, $53.2 million University of New Mexico Cancer Research and Treatment Center in Albuquerque, which is slated for completion in spring 2009.

The center, designated one of 60 National Cancer Institute research centers nationwide, will bring in national funding and attract doctors and researchers from the most prestigious medical institutions.

The UNM Cancer Research and Treatment Center’s five-story tower is designed to feel more like a spa than a hospital.

Image courtesy Rohde May Keller McNamara Architecture

Architects Mark Rohde and Jim McNamara of Albuquerque-based Rohde May Keller McNamara Architecture PC-along with architects from VOA Associates in Chicago-designed a building that contains details not always found in hospitals that pay attention to patient and visitor comfort along with the the safe use of the latest medical equipment.

“Wherever possible we tried to be responsive to what it feels like emotionally to have cancer and go to a facility like this when you’re probably scared to death, anxious and quite ill,” Rohde says. “So we made the flavor of the building into that of a calming health spa. We wanted to project a place of wellness and tranquility rather than that of a typical hospital.”       

The 190,000-sq-ft building will also feature valet parking. “The last thing we wanted for this building is for patients to have to park miles away,” Rohde adds.

An unusual number of closely planted trees will line the parking lot, providing shade for visitors who prefer to wait outside in their cars. An enclosed parking structure is slated for later construction.

A front check-in desk will resemble a hotel’s to create a more welcoming ambience.

 A large light “well” will pass outside light down through every floor as an additional design feature to bring openness and daylight to the building’s interior.

Four treatment vaults housing advanced radiation tools require reinforced concrete walls and ceilings ranging from 4 to 7 ft thick. Albuquerque-based landscape architect Richard Borkovetz says a green, living roof will be placed above the treatment vaults to beautify a second-floor roof that would have been visible from patient rooms.

“Think of the hospital like an ‘L,’” Borkovetz says. “The cancer treatment equipment in the vault sits in the inside of the L between administration and treatment.” The main, five-story component rises above one- and two-story components. He says the low roof “is a big area of 15,000 sq ft that would have been an ugly thing to look down upon. We settled on a particularly tough succulent called sedum that gives a mixed tapestry of different flower colors and can close down its pores during dry periods.” The sedum will be planted in 6-in. of irrigated soil, he adds.

Atop the building, a penthouse suite with 30 chairs will offer scenic views of the Sandia Mountains to help raise the spirits of chemotherapy patients. “We tried to provide the best real estate on the project for this function, where people are commonly confined for treatment for eight hours,” Rohde says. 

A fire pit and other accoutrements for the comfort of American Indian users are part of the plans, he says.

Extra-large hospital rooms will provide room for visiting families.

“The hospital has a tricultural constituency” of Anglos, Hispanics and Native Americans, Rohde says. “One of the goals of the project is that it have elements of design that would be sensitive to what would make all these folks comfortable,” he adds.

A circular, light-filled meditation chapel will offer spiritual comfort.

Combining consumer-pleasing construction with safeguards required for medical radiation physics is not a simple matter, says structural engineer Jim Kreis, owner of Albuquerque-based RME ABQ LLC. 

Kreis says the concrete radiation vaults were designed by a physicist who did calculations on how the radiation might travel. Because radiation travels only in straight lines, “he designed a maze so you have to walk through a series of curves that provide shielding,” Kreis says. “The architecture is so detailed that the structure needs to come together in three dimensions to accommodate it.”

For example, one concrete cantilever is supported by a concrete wall, but behind that is a structural steel floor that had to be designed and installed to support the wall. A number of cantilevered walkway covers eliminate outer columns, making the building feel more open but creating construction challenges. One is a cantilevered glass roof system more than 80 ft long that serves as a canopy for people picking up patients.

The building will require 600 tons of steel and 12,000 yds of concrete.

“We’re all challenged when there are so many demands on a structure,” says Rohde. “The high-technology equipment, air-conditioning and structural needs-they all fight with the idea of small scale and pleasant, almost residential design.”

Pat Markley, project manager for general contractor Flintco, headquartered in Oklahoma City, agrees that “the level of finish is nothing short of spectacular. It does not look like a hospital.

Still, he and Flintco senior project manager Dustin Hammon have to deal with problems like the five-story light well. At first glance, it seems to contradict fire laws because it creates open spaces between floors. Regulation normally mandates protective two-hour burn-delay coatings on rafters and other fire precautions.

“Dealing with an open shaft from one floor to another is something you normally can’t do,” Markley says. “You need fire suppression because it’s totally open.” The 40- by 50-ft cross-sectioned light shaft, however, is designed in multiple layers so that a wall of water would coat the inside recesses of the glass in the event of fire.

The green roof area above millions of dollars worth of radiation machines was the object of special attention to forestall leaks. The roof is sloped to drain on the west side so that irrigation water does not stagnate in place. Gasket materials around roof penetrations in the water-proofing thermoplastic polyolefin roofing material were double-checked, and UV blockers protect any exposed areas.

Built on a sloping site, the east side of the building sits at a lower level but is close to an existing structure housing out-patient surgery and MRI imaging.  A soldier pile wall maintains the grade along the line.  Building foundations were achieved with minimum vibration by excavating holes drilled by augers to depths as great as 75 ft.

Reinforcing cages were installed in the holes and concrete was poured in. “You also have to compact earth, which creates soil movement and vibration, and that’s next to very sensitive equipment,” Kreis says. “To work, it had to all fit together like a Swiss watch.”

Even the parking lot needed unusual care, says project civil engineer Graeme Means of Albuquerque-based High Mesa Consulting Group. “One challenge was to drain rainwater in the parking lots into landscaped islands that we depressed,” he adds.  “Usually, rainwater washing off a parking lot is greasy, dirty and carries trash with it, so we want to get rid of it.” 

But because UNM wanted to utilize the rainwater, he worked with the landscape architect to line each planted area with large cobbles as a protective edge. “These won’t wash away when you hit them with a high pressure hose to clean the trash and grease,” Kreis says. “That would have been a maintenance nightmare.”

The building’s purpose gives the project a special meaning to some of the participants. “It gives you a good feeling,” says Hammon, looking over the site in progress.

“This is much different from building a casino or a jail, which I’ve done,” says Markley. “Especially if you’ve had friends or family members who’ve had cancer.

Key Players

Owner: University of New Mexico
Architect: Rohde May Keller McNamara Architecture PC; VOA Associates
General Contractor: Flintco
Engineers: RME ABQ LLC; High Mesa Consulting Group
Landscape Architect: Richard Borkovetz
Subcontractors: Yearout Mechanical; The Noel Company; U.S. Electrical;
Southwest Glass & Glazing; Precision Masonry; Les File Drywall;
Hughes & Associates; Chavez Concrete

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