Missouri isn’t the only state with a new medical center designed to address the shortage of healthcare professionals, as the University of Kansas Medical Center recently opened the Health Education Building with the same goal in mind.
The Health Education Building is a four-story, 171,000-sf building designed by Co Architects and Helix Architecture that includes high-tech simulation environments and flexible learning studios. Large-scale teaching studios and clinical skills and simulation labs support active, team-based learning.
Photo courtesy of KUMC.
Two 225-person interactive studios are separated by an operable partition that can be removed to create one column-free 11,000-sf event space. The studios and labs “float” within the outer glass façade of the building to show off the core of the building’s curriculum to the public.
From the outside, the building’s design uses a transparent “lantern” box design. The ample use of glass allows students to receive natural daylight and provides them with exterior views.
The Health Education Building’s design also called for an on-grade parking lot to be changed into a 22,000-sf green courtyard and a 17,000-sf vegetated roof with access. The irrigation system for these features uses condensate water from the building’s mechanical system.
Photo courtesy of KUMC.
A 250-foot-long glass-enclosed bridge passes through the center of the Health Education Building and connects it to existing buildings on the Kansas City campus. The bridge links the campus into a loop that provides 6,000 sf of lounge, meeting, and student activity space.
The Health Education Building was designed with flexibility in mind and can accommodate a 25% class size increase over its current enrollment.
Photo courtesy of KUMC.
Related Stories
Healthcare Facilities | Apr 24, 2017
Treating the whole person: Designing modern mental health facilities
Mental health issues no longer carry the stigma that they once did. Awareness campaigns and new research have helped bring our understanding of the brain—and how to design for its heath—into the 21st century.
Sponsored | Glass and Glazing | Apr 14, 2017
Azuria glass from Vitro provides hospital with the desired pop of color
Located in Wilmington, Delaware, Nemours/duPont hospital has undergone a series of expansions since it was founded in the 1940s.
Healthcare Facilities | Apr 14, 2017
Nature as therapy
A famed rehab center is reconfigured to make room for more outdoor gardens, parks, and open space.
Healthcare Facilities | Apr 13, 2017
Investors and developers are still avid for medical office buildings
A new CBRE survey finds that equity set aside for purchases continues to outshoot the availability of in-demand supply.
Healthcare Facilities | Apr 13, 2017
The rise of human performance facilities
A new medical facility in Chicago focuses on sustaining its customers’ human performance.
Healthcare Facilities | Apr 11, 2017
Today’s community centers offer glimpses of the healthy living centers of tomorrow
Creating healthier populations through local community health centers.
Healthcare Facilities | Apr 2, 2017
Comfort and durability were central to the design and expansion of a homeless clinic in Houston
For this adaptive reuse of an old union hall, the Building Team made the best of tight quarters.
Healthcare Facilities | Mar 31, 2017
The cost of activating a new facility
Understanding the costs specifically related to activation is one of the keys to successfully occupying the new space you’ve worked so hard to create.
Sponsored | Healthcare Facilities | Mar 29, 2017
Using Better Light for Better Healthcare
Proper lighting can improve staff productivity, patient healing, and the use of space in healthcare facilities
Healthcare Facilities | Mar 29, 2017
Obamacare to Republicare: Making sense of the chaos in healthcare
With a long road of political and financial uncertainty ahead for the healthcare sector, what does this mean for the nonresidential construction industry’s third-largest sector?