The Humanity of Southern Architecture: Our Work with American Family Care

It can be easy to think of architecture as a field obsessed with aesthetics – almost solely with how a building looks and appears inside and out.

While aesthetics are important, so is function. Even more important is how the function serves its primary purpose: meeting the user’s needs each day.

In other words, we at bDot Architecture focus on the humanity of Southern architecture – of how the design relates to people and what it communicates to them.

Our work with American Family Care thankfully allows us to do just that.

American Family Care Oxford Exterior

American Family Care operates family care/urgent care clinics in Alabama, Georgia, Florida and Tennessee. They provide accessible primary and urgent care, plus family medicine, to patients of all ages. Led by Dr. Bruce Irwin, AFC has become one of the leading names in health care.

We have helped design numerous AFC facilities and are currently working on several more. With all of these projects, our focus – and that of Dr. Irwin – is always the same: design buildings that are more than mere buildings.

American Family Care Dothan Exterior

Bringing out the humanity of architecture means being sympathetic to what patients and their families think and feel when they come to AFC seeking care. Whether it is a worried mother bringing in a sick child, an athlete walking in with a broken arm, or a person just looking for a check-up, everyone is in search of comfort, reassurance, and familiarity.

The design, then, is built with the patient in mind, giving them a warm, welcoming environment that meets their needs. We also want each AFC to be functional, in that the doctors, nurses, and technicians inside can do their jobs efficiently making the patients visit as short as possible.