Ecos was retained to develop a master plan for this hospital and medical office building campus in Polk County, Florida. The 60-acre site had considerable cross-slope for a Florida site. This allowed the Landscape Architects to situate the hospital facility on the slope to provide it with the most visibility from the adjacent four-lane highway – a major north-south artery.
With the ‘high’ side of the site behind the facility, the Landscape Architects graded the site so that the stormwater management basins occurred in very shallow, barely detectable basins around the periphery of the developed land. Wide medians between parking bays help infiltrate run-off, rather than catching it and transporting it to another location. The curvilinear parking and access drive layout creates a more human-scale environment that mitigates the usual ‘institutional’ feel of a hospital project. The wide medians also allowed for a heavy planting of trees, shrubs, and palms provide shade and visual aesthetics for the visitors to the facility.
