Texas Christian University today officially completed its opening of Arnold Hall, a 95,000-sf, four-story home to the institution’s Anne Burnett Marion School of Medicine.
Arnold Hall marks TCU’s first major off-campus development, and initiates future growth for the university’s downtown Fort Worth location. The project team—which included the architects CO Architects and Hoefer Welker, and the general contractor Linbeck—collaborated with the city of Fort Worth to select and establish the location near urban medical districts and Near Southside, an urban mixed-use community, to build a bioscience sector.
The new medical school sits less than a mile from Baylor Scott & White All Saints Medical Center–Fort Worth, Cook Children’s Medical Center, Medical City Fort Worth, and Texas Health Harris Methodist Hospital.
Construction of Arnold Hall—which had been in the works for a decade—was completed in July. The project was Plan B, after TCU and the University of North Texas Health Center couldn’t reach agreement for building under a private-public partnership. (The two parties split in January 2022, according to KERANews.)
Arnold Hall serves as an academic hub for 240 medical students annually, and nearly 150 faculty and staff. TCU administrators have estimated that the Burnett School of Medicine will create 31,200 jobs and have annual economic impact of $4 billion by 2030.
Future-ready facility
The new $62 million facility encourages collaboration via a commons area, library, classrooms, faculty offices and suites. Its third floor houses anatomy and experimental labs with AR and VR technologies. Students also have access to high-fidelity human mannikins in a medical simulation suite, where they can practice team-based care.
In the building’s clinical rooms, students hone their communications and diagnostic skills with patient-actors. And TCU’s curricula allow students to partner with physicians on their first day of medical school to identify drivers in the future of medicine that include artificial intelligence, genomics, and using technology to monitor patient health and diseases.
The Arnold Hall “communicates TCU’s commitment to creating dynamic state-of-the-art facilities for next-generation medical education,” said Stuart D. Flynn, MD, founding dean of the Burnett School of Medicine, in a prepared statement. Jonathan Kanda, FAIA, Principal with CO Architects, added that the goal of Arnold Hall is to create a school that is capable of “accommodating future technological and pedagogical advances in medical education.”
Related Stories
| Oct 13, 2010
Campus building gives students a taste of the business world
William R. Hough Hall is the new home of the Warrington College of Business Administration at the University of Florida in Gainesville. The $17.6 million, 70,000-sf building gives students access to the latest technology, including a lab that simulates the stock exchange.
| Oct 13, 2010
Science building supports enrollment increases
The new Kluge-Moses Science Building at Piedmont Virginia Community College, in Charlottesville, is part of a campus update designed and managed by the Lukmire Partnership. The 34,000-sf building is designed to be both a focal point of the college and a recruitment mechanism to get more students enrolling in healthcare programs.
| Oct 13, 2010
Residences bring students, faculty together in the Middle East
A new residence complex is in design for United Arab Emirates University in Al Ain, UAE, near Abu Dhabi. Plans for the 120-acre mixed-use development include 710 clustered townhomes and apartments for students and faculty and common areas for community activities.
| Oct 13, 2010
New health center to focus on education and awareness
Construction is getting pumped up at the new Anschutz Health and Wellness Center at the University of Colorado, Denver. The four-story, 94,000-sf building will focus on healthy lifestyles and disease prevention.
| Oct 13, 2010
Community college plans new campus building
Construction is moving along on Hudson County Community College’s North Hudson Campus Center in Union City, N.J. The seven-story, 92,000-sf building will be the first higher education facility in the city.
| Oct 12, 2010
University of Toledo, Memorial Field House
27th Annual Reconstruction Awards—Silver Award. Memorial Field House, once the lovely Collegiate Gothic (ca. 1933) centerpiece (along with neighboring University Hall) of the University of Toledo campus, took its share of abuse after a new athletic arena made it redundant, in 1976. The ultimate insult occurred when the ROTC used it as a paintball venue.
| Oct 12, 2010
Owen Hall, Michigan State University, East Lansing, Mich.
27th Annual Reconstruction Awards—Silver Award. Officials at Michigan State University’s East Lansing Campus were concerned that Owen Hall, a mid-20th-century residence facility, was no longer attracting much interest from its target audience, graduate and international students.
| Oct 12, 2010
Cell and Genome Sciences Building, Farmington, Conn.
27th Annual Reconstruction Awards—Silver Award. Administrators at the University of Connecticut Health Center in Farmington didn’t think much of the 1970s building they planned to turn into the school’s Cell and Genome Sciences Building. It’s not that the former toxicology research facility was in such terrible shape, but the 117,800-sf structure had almost no windows and its interior was dark and chopped up.
| Oct 12, 2010
Full Steam Ahead for Sustainable Power Plant
An innovative restoration turns a historic but inoperable coal-burning steam plant into a modern, energy-efficient marvel at Duke University.
| Sep 16, 2010
Green recreation/wellness center targets physical, environmental health
The 151,000-sf recreation and wellness center at California State University’s Sacramento campus, called the WELL (for “wellness, education, leisure, lifestyle”), has a fitness center, café, indoor track, gymnasium, racquetball courts, educational and counseling space, the largest rock climbing wall in the CSU system.
