New health pavilion completes on the Health Education Campus at Case Western Reserve University

The recently completed Sheila and Eric Samson Pavilion on the Health Education Campus at Case Western Reserve University and Cleveland Clinic combines the education of students from medical, nursing, and dental schools under one roof.

Key elements of each school are arranged around a large internal courtyard and are designed to both maintain their own identity, and also share a series of spaces with the other schools. The different faculties share teaching spaces, admin areas, lecture halls, recreational areas, technical teaching facilities, storage, cafeterias, and personnel support.

The building’s 80-foot-high central Delos M. Cosgrove courtyard acts as the pavilion’s social heart. It is naturally lit through linear skylights and furnished with oak tables, benches, and planters. The furniture, as well as a series of Ficus Nitida trees and water gardens at the north and south of the courtyard, are all easily reconfigurable to allow the courtyard to host a wide range of events.

The region’s heavy snowfalls were taken into consideration when designing the roof of the courtyard. The roof trusses are pitched to allow the snow to naturally slide off the glass and onto the solid infill roof around the courtyard, where it will melt into the channels along each side of the roof.

The pavilion’s goal is to allow students from the dental, nursing, and medical schools to learn together and collaborate using shared spaces and the latest digital technology, which includes virtual and mixed-reality programs.

For most of human history, design has mostly considered “typical users” who are fully able-bodied without clinical or emotional disabilities. The problem with this approach is that it offers a limited perspective on how space can positively or negatively influence someone based on their physical, mental, and sensory abilities.

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