Add as a preferred source on Google

KU Medical Center Addresses State's Shortage of Healthcare Professionals

  • 09/11/17

KU HospitalThe University of Kansas Medical Center (KU Medical Center) — home to Kansas’ only school of medicine — celebrated the recent opening of the Health Education Building (HEB) to address the state’s critical shortage of healthcare professionals in underserved communities. The new, four-story, 171,000-square-foot building designed by CO Architects (programming and design architect) and Helix Architecture + Design (executive architect) significantly enhances the medical campus’ existing facilities, curriculum, and classrooms with high-tech simulation environments and flexible learning studios.

"The advanced teaching technology at KU Medical Center’s Health Education Building supports new models of learning to attract and educate a greater number of doctors, nurses, and healthcare professionals," says Paul Zajfen, FAIA, RIBA, Design Principal at Los Angeles-based CO Architects. "Design considerations were made to create a first-rate educational building that is flexible enough to accommodate a 25 percent class size increase over its current enrollment."

Located on the northeast corner of West 39th Avenue and Rainbow Boulevard, the new HEB creates an iconic presence artfully balanced by a transparent, four-story "lantern" box design. Glass allows public and student areas to have access to natural daylight and exterior views. The building blends traditional and emerging educational spaces that support active, team-based learning — from large-scale teaching studios to state-of-the-art clinical skills and simulation laboratories. Two 225-person interactive studios can be combined by an operable partition to create one column-free 11,000-square-foot event space. These specialized programmatic elements "float" within the glass container to put the heart of the building, the core of its curriculum, on display to the public.

HEB sits at the center of existing clinical, research and educational buildings on the Kansas City campus. The new building will serve as the primary teaching facility to support inter-professional education for three schools (University of Kansas School of Medicine, School of Nursing, and School of Health Professions) and connects its users with a 250-foot-long glass-enclosed "building" bridge passing directly through HEB’s center and spanning over the adjacent street. The bridge links the campus into an energized, interdisciplinary loop to become the intersection of campus life with 6,000 square feet of lounge, meeting, and student activity space.

The overall design consciously incorporates energy-efficient systems, recycled and regional materials, and passive energy strategies. The design improves current site conditions by transforming an on-grade parking lot into a 22,000-square-foot green courtyard and a 17,000-square-foot vegetated roof with access. These garden spaces will welcome and encourage outdoor activity around the building. An irrigation system utilizes condensate water from the building’s mechanical system.

In addition to Zajfen, the CO Architects design team includes: Scott Kelsey, FAIA, managing principal; Jonathan Kanda, FAIA, LEED-AP BD+C, principal/project manager; Tanner Clapham, AIA, associate/project designer; Chao Chen, architect; and Michael Ly, designer.

Featured

  • Different Starting Points, Same End Goal

    Higher education campuses can enhance student experience by implementing mobile credentials to streamline building access, on-campus payments, and access to other amenities. This enables students to connect to their campuses through the technology they use most: their mobile devices.

  • textured paper collage shows a school building on fire as a fire truck sprays water into the flames

    Why a Fire Loss Is More than Flames

    We've all seen what fire damage can do to a property, but the types of damage building owners often encounter after a fire loss can exceed expectations. Having full awareness of the different forms of damage properties can sustain helps owners respond faster, reduce continued damage, and get back on the road to recovery in short order.

  • Three U.S. Universities Install Acre Security Access Control Platform

    Cloud-native physical and digital security solutions company Acre Security recently announced that it has deployed its access control platform at three major universities in the U.S., according to a news release. Acre partnered with Atrium Campus to provide coverage for more than 69,000 students at the University of Virginia (UVA), George Mason University, and Rockhurst University.

  • UNL Kiewit Hall

    Designing for Engineering Excellence: Integrating Sustainability and Wellness at UNLs Kiewit Hall

    Kiewit Hall at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln exemplifies how academic institutions can integrate sustainability and wellness into modern learning environments. With an integrated and collaborative team approach, Kiewit Hall addresses enhanced learning and creativity, physical health, and mental wellness, and fosters a sense of community through innovative design, operations, and policy solutions.

Digital Edition