- Area: 1800 m²
- Year: 2010
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Photographs:Halkin Mason Photography
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Manufacturers: Saflex
Text description provided by the architects. This dental office design in Arlington, Virginia is about exposing the therapeutic benefits of color as backdrops for the highly meticulous dental specialty of periodontics and implant surgery. It is also about articulating contrast in such way that color provides positive distractions to patients and visitors as they experience through the space.
A curved corner triangular feature volume, clad with natural wool felt strips of different thicknesses and widths, dictates the flow of the 1,800 square foot office. Lined in bright yellow to encourage energy, admissions and checkout are handled separately from inside at opposite ends. From the entry through the waiting area patients walk up to the reception counter before proceeding for treatment while signing out occurs inconspicuously on the other side. It was one of the main concerns to isolate acoustically from the surgical suites in such reduced square footage.
Five operatories laid out along the perimeter benefit from the urban and open views while allowing the natural light to be filtered through color laminated glass into the lab and sterilization core. Each operatory was assigned a specific color that would help endorse vitality and generate a forceful impact on patients health. Skillful color matching materials inside each room unleash interesting optical illusions when walking in and out from the main corridor which displays more muffled whites and grays.
Beyond the “sharp” aesthetics of the design, the client expected a project of interiors that reflected a successful practice where innovations in the field of implantology and digital dentistry were being implemented. At the same time he imagined a space that also cultivated office culture. The waiting area is clearly a hub for art where wall niches were carved and lit to exhibit artist Ruby Rumie’s installation of dental tooth paste tubes printed with silhouettes of the workers at Valparaiso market in Chile. On the opposite side hang Pedro Ruiz’s miniature paintings of airplanes leaving contrails of white smoke in open blue skies.
