Combining Modern Healthcare with Tribal Design: Nisqually Health & Wellness Center

Words: Jake Sulya
Photos: WARFIELD MASONRY, LLC

Building The Circle: The Nisqually Health & Wellness Center
The Nisqually Health & Wellness Center is a project that the wonderful team here at Warfield Masonry completed in 2020. Built on the Nisqually Reservation (near Olympia, Washington), this project incorporates a variety of masonry materials into its tribal and modern healthcare design.

Drawn by KMB Architects, the building composition embraces the Nisqually Health Department's belief in holistic healing and their “Healing Circle” concept. Architectural features lean heavily on natural finishes to provide a welcoming, soothing, and healing-centered experience for patients and visitors. The masonry elements on this project include a large radius CMU wall covered with adhered stone veneer, CMU veneer on the building’s exterior entry façade, and natural stone veneer flooring in the Healing Room.

Teamed up with Korsmo Construction as the General Contractor, our mission was to execute the Nisqually Tribe’s vision of a health and wellness center that embodied the “Healing Circle,” which promotes spiritual, mental, emotional, and physical health. This project is one of my team’s favorites, and it delights me to share it with the readers of MASONRY Magazine.

Integrating The Elements
The various masonry products on this project are integrated in a way that guides patients and visitors throughout the building. This begins as they approach the health and wellness center from the parking lot. The main entrance for the wellness center is adorned with Mutual Materials Split-Face Onyx 4-inch CMU Veneer with Type S Natural Gray Mortar to offset the dark tones of the CMU. The color, split-face finish, and overall height of the veneer façade almost mimic the look of the Northern Cascade Mountains and the volcanic rock materials that make them up. We also installed custom precast architectural features on the exterior in the form of wall caps and windowsill caps. This natural material focus continues throughout the project, promoting a grounding effect for those in care.

As visitors and patients enter the building, they are greeted with the large CMU radius wall that is enveloped with adhered manufactured stone veneer on both sides. The wall’s makeup includes 12-inch Natural Gray CMU and El Dorado Stone “Cliffstone Mesquite” in a dry-stacked fashion. A fireplace is integrated into the entry side of the feature wall, creating a comforting and welcoming waiting area for patients.

As one follows the wall around to its opposite side, a staircase begins to run up it, leading visitors on a walk above the interior garden. This interior garden walkway, according to KMB Architects, is meant to mimic the Nisqually Delta Wildlife Refuge.

The Healing Room
The last and arguably most challenging area with masonry was the Healing Room. The flooring material for this room consisted of mortar-set Charcoal Gray Mica Slate Natural Stone. The Nisqually Tribe’s “Healing Circle” concept is visually reflected by the room’s circular layout and natural stone flooring. In addition, handmade wood benches and other architectural woodworking elements were incorporated into the room.

While the masonry features on this project are wonderful, one can’t mention the community impact this project had. The 50,000-square-foot project provided the Nisqually Tribe with a new pharmacy, medical clinic, dental clinic, natural healing center, and other health services.

Overcoming Challenges
The three main challenges we encountered on this project pertained to dissimilar material integration, material layout, and performing construction around COVID-19 restrictions.

Our challenges with dissimilar material integration were present when incorporating our masonry with the architectural woodworking elements mentioned previously. Traditional Indigenous architecture relies heavily on wood elements, like the traditional longhouses that Indigenous people in the Pacific Northwest have lived in for millennia, so it was no surprise to see it incorporated into this project. For example, incorporating our Charcoal Gray Mica Slate Natural Stone flooring with the handmade wood benches and log peelers in the Healing Room required a lot of preconstruction coordination. We ended up performing multiple mockups before achieving the finished product that is present today. We also had similar integration issues with metal architectural elements and went through the same process to resolve them.

On the topic of layout, the 12-inch CMU radius wall with the stone veneer covering it proposed some of its own challenges. Since the staircase curved with our CMU wall, it required a tight layout. Errors on curved work could stack up quickly, so proper sequencing and accurate layout were critical. In addition to the layout and material coordination issues we experienced, we also dealt with coordination issues surrounding the societal impacts of COVID-19. Washington State specifically had some of the more stringent COVID-19 restrictions, so constant communication with the general contractor was paramount. Despite these challenges, we were able to successfully execute our mission and create a health-promoting environment with masonry materials.

Award-Winning Execution
Since we felt that the “natural healing” aspect conveyed by the architecture and material choices on this project was so captivating, we decided to enter the Nisqually Health & Wellness Center into the MIW (Formerly Masonry Institute of Washington, now Northwest Masonry Institute) 2023 Excellence in Masonry Awards.

Since there wasn’t a specific category for medical projects in the submissions process, we entered this one into the Tile, Stone & Marble Interiors category. We were ecstatic to hear we placed second in the category, awarding us with a Silver Award of Excellence. The real satisfaction in constructing this project came from adapting the Nisqually Tribe’s “healing circle” concept into physical reality, not just winning an award after the fact. Despite encountering challenges during the project, we still found a way to execute the vision that had been laid out during the design process.

Combining Modern Healthcare with Tribal Design: Nisqually Health & Wellness Center

About: Case Study

The Importance of Instructor Support

Vibing Masonry #11: Innovative Concrete Masonry Technologies in Healthcare Design

Why Termination Bars Still Matter: A Practical Look at Long‑Term Flashing Performance

Building Solutions: The Critical Role of Cavity Space in Masonry Moisture Control