When nursing staff in the patient tower at UVA Hospital needed a clear line of sight to patients, sliding curved doors in 84 rooms turned out to be the answer.
Nurses are responsible for multiple patients at any given moment, but they can’t be in multiple rooms at once. This predicament drove the creation of what would eventually be a gigantic, outrageously durable curved door.
But let’s pause before we discuss the curvature of our new door. Why sliding doors?
Sliding doors are great in areas where space is at a premium. They take up less space than traditional swinging doors, so they can be used in narrow or smaller areas. They can be opened and closed with one hand, making them ideal for people with limited mobility, such as patients who are in wheelchairs or on crutches. Basically, “barn doors” are not just for barns.
Now that we’re on the same page about the benefits of sliding doors, let’s talk about the Acrovyn® Curved Door. It’s big—wider than any standard door—it’s got the durability to match all our Acrovyn products, and it’s beautiful. It also happens to be a great option for healthcare interiors because it provides extended sight lines into patient rooms.
“The concept of the curved door first came about somewhere between schematic and design development—we did a series of mock-ups and showed the curved door to the nursing staff, and they loved it,” said Brian Sykes, Healthcare Practice Leader at Perkins&Will.
In addition to having a unique shape, the door needed to be strong and durable to withstand the constant use it would receive in a healthcare environment. Enter, Acrovyn. “CS was the only company willing to not just make it but to put their name on it and say, hey, this’ll hold up to the Acrovyn Door standards,” said Will Boardman, APEM, Inc.
A collaborative process between CS, the architects, the design firm, and the construction manager resulted in a behemoth of a door. “The doors themselves are not regular doors; if you’re looking at doors, they’re like a Humvee of a door,” said Boardman. For extra protection, additional ribbing and supports were added within the door while Acrovyn shields the door’s surface. “The cherry on top, the icing on the cake, was the durable Acrovyn finish to make sure we had a good, durable clean surface,” said Matt Kidwell, Senior Project Manager at Skanska USA Building Inc.
“One of the things that I am most proud of with this door that we worked on with CS is when you open it, it feels really grounded and like you are sheltered by that door,” said Sykes. We couldn’t agree more.
Read our full case story here for more details about how we came around to the idea of a curved door.
