Health & Wellness Center Benefits from State-of-the-Art Thin Stone System

The healthcare industry is about more than helping the sick or injured get better; it also involves providing positive environments for healing and wellness. Building designers create healthcare facilities with user experience top-of-mind and seek high performance masonry products to execute their modern, inviting designs.

Virtua Health & Wellness Center in Washington Township, N.J., is a 300,000-square-foot facility providing a variety of services to help people get well and stay well. Patients have easy access to physician offices, specialty services such as same-day surgery, a pharmacy, a community meeting space, a retail shop and more. The building is located next door to the Virtua Voorhees Hospital.

HGA Architects in Milwaukee, Wis., created state-of-the-art, healthy designs for Virtua Health & Wellness Center; in particular, for the building’s exterior. These designs called for ARRIS-clip Renaissance® units from Arriscraft to perform as a major part of the exterior façade to achieve their overall design vision. Several Virtua group properties feature Arriscraft thin stone. According to the manufacturer, Arriscraft delivers uniform color and format, for a consistent design approach across numerous projects—even if they are built years apart.

Due to the deep stone soffits and the large spans between columns, there were few options available to support a traditional 4” thick unit masonry veneer façade. This left only one option for the designers—curtain wall construction. This led to 34,000 square feet of ARRIS-clip Renaissance Units being specified. The use of the lighter ARRIS-clip units allowed for lighter structure resulting in significant cost savings and greater design flexibility.

Project Highlights:

• 34,000 sq. ft. of ARRIS-clip Renaissance units Smooth finish. Custom color.
• The first of four Virtua facility buildings on three separate campuses with 180,000 square feet of ARRIS-clip Renaissance units being specified.
• Joints were finished with backer-rod and silicone sealant.
• Return Corner Units were utilized at the corners of the building.
• The suspended stone soffits were critical to the design intent so that stone appeared to be “floating” over the store front windows below.
• Since the joints were not mortared, the use of the ARRIS-clip.

Renaissance Units allowed for winter construction with no tarps and salamanders required to cover and heat the wall.