SPC Hugo V. Mendoza Soldier Family Care Center

The new Soldier Family Care Clinic (SFCC) at Fort Bliss is the U.S. Army’s largest free-standing outpatient clinic, and its southwestern desert flair blends seamlessly with its West Texas context. The rich palette of exterior and interior materials and colors combine to create a comfortable and decidedly non-institutional healthcare environment for active-duty soldiers and their families.

The SFCC serves nearly 45,000 beneficiaries and presented the design challenge of organizing a facility of 145,478 square feet - including 88 exam rooms, 44 provider offices and nearly a dozen departments - to be efficient, inviting and easy to navigate between multiple departments and clinics.

Despite its size, the plan’s organization lends itself to extremely simple wayfinding, ample daylight throughout the facility and relaxing views of the Franklin Mountains to the northwest. The building is functionally organized into two wings, joined by a central two-story atrium, facing a courtyard on the northwest side of the building. The simple wayfinding scheme, intimate scale of decentralized reception and waiting areas, extensive daylighting, continuous views from all public spaces, and rich palette of exterior and interior materials combine to create a relaxing, comfortable healthcare environment that breaks the mold of institutional Department of Defense healthcare facilities of yesterday.

 

All public circulation, patient waiting and clinic/ancillary reception points are located along the north and west faces of the building, and a steel and stone pedestrian bridge on the second floor connects the two wings without detracting from the impact of the two-story atrium space.