A 250,000 sq ft expansion that blended seamlessly into a 25-year-old hospital campus — using three custom-mixed stone types to achieve one unbroken exterior.
Cook Children's Medical Center is one of the largest freestanding pediatric hospitals in the United States, located in Fort Worth, Texas. When the institution undertook a major expansion — more than doubling the size of its campus — the design team faced a challenge that sits at the core of institutional architecture: how do you add 250,000 sq ft to a building without the seam showing?
The existing campus had been built over 25 years earlier with specific stone profiles, colors, and textures. By the time the expansion was designed, those exact natural stone sources were unavailable — and even if they had been, natural stone's color variability would have made a true match impossible. The architect's solution was to specify manufactured architectural stone, giving AAS the ability to engineer a custom color match from raw material mixes.
This is where manufactured stone wins decisively over natural stone in healthcare: when you need to match an existing building precisely, a factory-controlled mix gives you repeatability that a quarry cannot. AAS designed a specific batch mix for each of the three product types — then matched all three to the same target color.
The cladding design used three different AAS products, each playing a distinct structural and visual role:
All three products were manufactured in coordination with a single color target. AAS ran sample panels from each production process, reviewed against the existing campus stone in natural light, and iterated until the match was confirmed before full production began.
Healthcare campuses don't have the luxury of starting over. Cook Children's needed its expansion to feel like part of the original building — not an addition. For patients' families navigating the campus, for staff moving between buildings, and for the institution's long-term identity, continuity mattered.
The technical challenges stacked quickly:
Advanced Architectural Stone's approach was methodical. Before production began, AAS developed three distinct batch mixes — one for cast stone, one for precast, one for GFRC — each formulated to hit the same target color despite the different production processes. Sample panels from each mix were produced and reviewed on site against the existing building in changing light conditions.
Once the architect and owner approved the samples, production ran on a documented formulation that was locked for the duration of the project. Quality control checks at the plant verified color consistency across batches, catching any drift early. The result was a campus addition that read as original to most observers — the goal of every successful institutional expansion.
The building became an integral part of the hospital campus. The design blends the expansion seamlessly into the part of Fort Worth that has a cluster of hospitals and healthcare buildings — new stone, original appearance. — Advanced Architectural Stone project documentation
Color-matching to existing buildings is among the most technically demanding specifications in architectural stone. Most manufacturers will attempt it; few have the process control to deliver it consistently at 250,000+ sq ft scale. For architects working on hospital expansions, medical office buildings, and campus-style institutional projects, the ability to specify manufactured stone and get a predictable, verified match is a meaningful project risk reduction.
Color-matching to existing campus buildings is one of the most technically demanding stone specifications. Get an estimate and tell us about your match requirements — we'll tell you exactly what's achievable.
Get an Instant Estimate