A marriage of brick and glass: White Plains Hospital Center for Advanced Medicine and Surgery
/Brick and glass aren’t always thought of as perfect partners. After all, brick has been around for thousands of years and is a frequent staple in traditional designs, while glass-walled structures are relatively young in comparison and tend to be associated with contemporary architecture. But designers at Perkins Eastman extracted the maximum benefit — and style — available from both materials in creating the Center for Advanced Medicine and Surgery.
Part of the White Plains Hospital campus in White Plains, New York, the Center’s design called for a three-way blend of fired clay brick in muted gray and buff tones to deliver the contemporary masonry compliment to the building’s generous glazing. The custom blend was provided by Cloud Ceramics (by way of distributor Belden Tri-State Materials), and included Modular Velour thin brick in Dove Grey, Cloud Grey, and Ash Grey. In total the project demanded 140,000 thin brick, including the numerous specially-shaped custom units put to work on the structure’s details.
The brick lends a sense of stability and permanence to counter the lightness of the glass portions of the building. On some facades it frames tall, vertical banks of windows while on others it provides visual structure for the glass with wide horizontal spans of brick creating a perceived foundation beneath broad expanses of glass.
Ground was broken for the structure in April 2019, and the Center officially opened on June 7, 2021 offering 252,000 square feet in this nine story, state of the art, outpatient facility.
All photos courtesy of Belden Tri-State Building Materials, New York.
