Oyate Health Center

Indian Health Service (IHS) selected Seven Generations Architecture + Engineering (7GAE) to design a 200,000-square-foot health center on a 40-acre campus, considered the largest IHS design-build effort to date. The $120 million health center consolidated 10 existing medical buildings into a new state-of-the-art facility that incorporates both traditional healing and modern medicine.

Located near the heart of Sioux Nation, the new Oyate Health Center is considered the first multi-tribal health clinic for IHS and will treat members of the Cheyenne River Sioux, Oglala Sioux, and Rosebud Sioux under one roof.

In-house services will include audiology, dental, eye care, primary care, podiatry, and specialty care in addition to behavioral health, laboratory, pharmacy, physical therapy, health education, and a wellness and nutrition center. State-of-the-art medical systems will include a large imaging suite with CT, X-ray, MRI, and ultrasound technology.

The facility included a 1,500-square-foot sterile processing department as part of the self-sufficient medical outpatient facility. The department included non-sterile unpackaging and sterile storage and assembly spaces for storage and distribution of medical materials. The decontamination and utility cart wash spaces allowed the facility to sterilize their own instruments without relying on outside vendors.

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The facility’s design blends aesthetic features of the Sioux San Historic district with cultural elements, reflecting the local tribes and significance of the land. The façade was designed to resemble the buttes of the Black Hills, and a stone base grounds the foundation. Glazing was selected to express the grasslands, and the exterior color is inspired by mineral banding found in the Badlands area.

The building’s main entrance features a 44-foot diameter steel-framed, glass-domed rotunda rising 40 feet from the floor. The public entrance features a Lakota star skylight that provides natural daylight. The main corridor is designed to mimic the river by dividing the east and west portions of the building and features colors, images, and symbolism specific to each tribe. A healing garden is also included in the outdoor landscape.

The facility was designed to achieve LEED Gold certification with energy efficiency and performance designed to be 30% more efficient than baseline energy model requirements. An underground cooling system creates ice during the night, used to cool the building during the day. A stormwater system allows water to infiltrate into parking island bioswales and irrigate plants and trees. Interior finishes feature pre- and post-consumer recycled content, no volatile organic compounds and local sourcing material. Indoor water-saving fixtures, a ground-mounted photovoltaic system, and scheduled lighting controls were also key to meeting LEED Gold requirements.

Historic Preservation Act Mitigation Activities

The team worked with the Indian Health Service (IHS) throughout the undertaking to comply with their obligations under Section 106 of the National Historic Preservation Act and prepare for construction of the 200,000-square-foot Oyate Health Center. Nineteen structures contributed to the Historic District, a site previously found to be eligible for the National Register of Historic Places, that had hosted the Rapid City Indian School (1898-1933), Sioux Sanatorium (1938-55), and for the last 50 years has been operated by the Indian Health Service. Only recently has the operation of the clinic come under tribal control through the Great Plains Tribal Leader’s Health Board.

Architectural documentation was among the first tasks to start due to the impending demolition. Time was short and in one week, the project team used a LiDAR scanner to document the interior and exterior of all 19 contributing structures that ranged in size from a boarding school era root cellar to the original tuberculosis sanatorium. Because many of these buildings were to be demolished to make way for the new health center, these point clouds were a critical tool for the speedy documentation of the site and mitigation activities that would follow.

For those structures that were not demolished, the point cloud served as a reference for crafting the rehabilitation plan and associated treatment recommendations. The team was asked to find compatible contemporary uses that would be relevant for staff and patients at the new facility for the barn, root cellar, and WPA-era retaining wall that, at 2,500 feet long, defines the southern half of the campus and is the most visible feature from the streets bordering the campus.

As part of the effort, the IHS also committed to rehabilitating three historic buildings eligible for the National Register – the barn, root cellar, and rock retaining wall and staircase – in keeping with its importance to its historic, architectural, and cultural values.

In addition to providing LiDAR derived architectural documentation and a preliminary rehabilitation plan, the project team was also responsible for the following:

• conducted archive research at the National Archives in Washington DC and Kansas City, State Archives in Pierre, SD, and the Smithsonian’s National Anthropological Museum to document the development and operation of the property, uncover existing photographs, drawings, maps, and newspaper accounts also collected and indexed

• collected oral histories about the site and the periods of significance

• provided archeological monitoring and discovery response

• presented and recorded mandatory sensitivity training for all contractors working onsite

• designed and produced a pictorial display interpreting both the history of the site and the mitigation effort

• a booklet that expands on the content included in the pictorial display