“I think we are one of the first, if not the first dental school in the world to solicit building design input from a Patient and Family Centered Care committee,” said Connie Drisko, CDM dean at GHSU (formerly the Medical College of Georgia). “The committee members told us that they wanted a patient-friendly building. And moving to this building from a box-like structure with not a lot of windows, I personally told the architects, ‘Don’t give me a box.’

“Lord, Aeck & Sargent translated into reality a building that fits our vision and needs. It’s a building that has a really spectacular outer appearance, an interior that flows, and LEED features to help lower our maintenance costs,” Drisko added.

Image Courtesy Jonathan Hillyer / Atlanta

Design sets tone for new section of campus

The new CDM building is the first structure to be completed on a GHSU 25-acre site that adjoins the existing campus. As such, the design was intended to set the tone for the site’s future medical, dental and associated research buildings.

“We wanted to design a building that would be a catalyst for the new site and that spoke about modern healthcare,” said John Starr, LAS principal in charge of the project. “And at the same time, we wanted to respond to the existing campus context by using a warm red brick characteristic of the university’s historic buildings mixed with areas of dark gray iron spot brick as a counterpoint. To emphasize that this is a thoroughly modern healthcare environment with the latest dental technologies, we added extensive areas of glazing – in some areas three to five stories in height – along with sculpted metal canopies at three entrances and crisply detailed metal plates slicing into the brick around each punched window.”

The building design was a response to its two distinct sides. One, which faces a new public parking area, is used for patient entry, while the other, which addresses the future campus quad, is for student, faculty and staff entry.

“The defining exterior design element on the patient entry side is the gentle, welcoming, embracing curve that responds to the patient and administration feedback we received,” said Aaron Wilner, LAS project designer. “The generous amount of glazing brings natural light to nearly every area of the building, including the 316 operatories (dental treatment stations), the practice and simulation labs, all the faculty offices, the faculty, staff and student lounges and of course, the main lobby.”

This three-story public lobby and two-story patient sky lobby above it – both glass enclosed – feature rich brown wood paneling and bright white terrazzo floors with accenting zinc strips, which reinforce the geometry and character of the building.

Image Courtesy Jonathan Hillyer / Atlanta

What’s inside

The first floor patient-entry side of the building includes three entries, one for the Faculty Practice Group, another for emergency oral and maxillofacial surgery, and the main central entrance used by about 85 percent of patients. This entrance opens into the three-story main lobby where patients are greeted at a reception desk and directed for registration to the appropriate business office on the first through fourth floors.

One of the most specialized areas on the first floor is the oral and maxillofacial surgery clinic, which includes a surgical operatory equipped with a high-definition camera for recording and broadcasting procedures to other locations within the College.

Image Courtesy Jonathan Hillyer / Atlanta

The second floor includes operatories for orthodontics, pediatric dentistry and several other dental residency programs, while the third floor houses the senior clinic; a simulation lab with 100 simulator workstations, 200 desktop monitors and seven large displays; a practice lab with 22 simulators and 25 workstations; and a wet lab.

The fourth floor is for the junior clinic, while the fifth combines dental administration offices and a mechanical penthouse.

Altogether, the building houses 316 dental operatories; a central sterilization center; a dispensary area on each of the first four floors; six student, faculty and staff lounges; 15 conference rooms; 10 support labs; and state-of-the-art equipment for students and dental practices, including 83 intra-oral radiography units and six panoramic/cephalometric x-ray machines, all but one with 3-D imaging capability.

“Designing and building a dental school is extremely complicated, even more so than a hospital because each operatory as well as the laboratories, must have air, suction, gases and plumbing brought in,” Dean Drisko said. “Everything requires very small tolerances, so it was important that Lord, Aeck & Sargent and (construction manager) KBR work closely together to ensure that everything came together as it should within the required dimensions.”

Image Courtesy Jonathan Hillyer / Atlanta

Green features aimed at reducing costs

Drisko also praised the building’s green features, especially the natural daylighting, which travels from one side of the structure to the other.

“We also like the floors in all of the clinics because they just have to be cleaned and buffed a little but not waxed, so over time the cost of maintenance will be very low. And we love that all the flooring, including the terrazzo floor, is made of recycled material.”

Wilner noted some of the building’s energy- and water-saving features.

“With so much dental equipment, the building is an energy hog, so we tried to offset that with the combination of natural light, automated shading on the patient side of the building in the public spaces, and programmable lighting control systems in certain areas of the building. At night, setbacks shut the lights off or down to the minimum required.

“As far as water is concerned, in the old dental school, each operatory had its own canister of purified water, and any left over at the end of the day was thrown out. But in the new