Buildings offering wellness services are proliferating on college campuses.
Among the schools with student centers that include “wellness” in their titles and programming are Franklin & Marshall College, the University of Chicago, Cal State Fullerton, Texas Tech, Stevens Institute of Technology, College of the Holy Cross, New York University, the University of Utah, Duke University, and Rutgers University.
Wellness “is redefining the typology,” says Scott Baltimore, an architect with Duda|Paine Architects in Durham, N.C., which has carved out a specialty in wellness design. He elaborates that more schools are taking a “synergistic” approach that brings different services and academic departments under one roof, thereby making the building more of a destination.
This transformation has also been “institutional,” says Turan Duda, FAIA, the firm’s Founding Principal. Parents want to know where their kids can go if their educational journey suffers a medical or psychological setback, particularly in the area of depression. More to the point, says Duda, are the “preventive” services that wellness suggests, a “safe place” where students can turn to for help and interaction.
AN EVOLVING FIELD
That colleges and universities are using wellness centers as part of their marketing and recruiting isn’t surprising. But what constitutes “wellness” depends on the school, and can be intentionally ambiguous, says Duda, because “this field is evolving.” To cite one unusual example, Duke University attracted more male students to its wellness center only after it introduced a “drumming circle” to its programming.
One of Duda|Paine’s projects is the recently completed University of Virginia Student Health & Wellness Center in Charlottesville, which the firm designed in collaboration with WMDO Architects, a frequent partner with the university. The project’s construction manager was Barton Malow, and the building pursued the International WELL Building Institute’s WELL Building Standard certification.
This 169,000-sf building, which replaces the school’s Elson Student Health Center, emphasizes wellness and preventive healthcare. It integrates student life and healthcare by introducing students to critical aspects of social, physical, psychological, personal, and environmental wellness. The project also brings together all the major campus health departments—General Medicine, Gynecology, Counseling and Psychological Services, Office of Health Promotion, and the Student Disability Access Center—as well as the Kinesiology Department and student wellness spaces.
During the building’s design phase, WMDO conducted workshops that included a virtual-reality simulation of the center’s entrance to assess different scenarios of student well-being. Another workshop focused on “journey mapping.”
The resulting four-story building is organized around an open and light-filled entry and multi-story lobby, with generous daylighting into all departments, and improved orientation and wayfinding. On the ground floor, level with the exterior ground plane to optimize visibility and accessibility, the Office of Health Promotion presents the “first stop” for students, while the Student Disability Access Center is convenient and central, overlooking the south pond.
PART OF A LARGER MASTER PLAN
Spaces on the ground level create opportunities for program synergies and community outreach. These include a pharmacy and retail space, and a teaching kitchen that provides classes on healthy eating habits and nutrition. (Duda sees this kitchen as another of the center’s “preventive” services. “Wellness centers are giving special attention to experiences,” says Duda, from the parking lot to the “choices” in services the center makes available to students.)
An Education/Multi-Purpose space adjacent to the main lobby supports functions such as yoga, special events, staff meetings, and wellness education. These spaces facilitate interaction and the exploration of alternative methodologies in wellness education.
The University of Virginia’s Student Health & Wellness Center is located close to the school’s historic quad. The building is also the first development within the Perkins and Will-designed Brandon Avenue Precinct Master Plan that eventually will include housing and other mixed-use buildings along a “green street,” and weave the university’s Central Grounds and the Health System Campus.
Related Stories
| Aug 11, 2010
New hospital expands Idaho healthcare options
Ascension Group Architects, Arlington, Texas, is designing a $150 million replacement hospital for Portneuf Medical Center in Pocatello, Idaho. An existing facility will be renovated as part of the project. The new six-story, 320-000-sf complex will house 187 beds, along with an intensive care unit, a cardiovascular care unit, pediatrics, psychiatry, surgical suites, rehabilitation clinic, and ...
| Aug 11, 2010
Manhattan's Gouverneur Healthcare Services tops out renovation, expansion
One year after breaking ground, the Building Team for the renovation and expansion of the Gouverneur Healthcare Services facility on Manhattan's Lower East Side topped out the $180 million project. Designed by New York-based RMJM, the development involves a 316,000-sf renovation and 108,000-sf addition that will house a 295-bed nursing facility and five-story ambulatory care center.
| Aug 11, 2010
Decline expected as healthcare slows, but hospital work will remain steady
The once steady 10% growth rate in healthcare construction spending has slowed, but hasn't entirely stopped. Spending is currently 1.7% higher than the same time last year when construction materials costs were 8% higher. The 2.5% monthly jobsite spending decline since last fall is consistent with the decline in materials costs.
| Aug 11, 2010
Construction under way on LEED Platinum DOE energy lab
Centennial, Colo.-based Haselden Construction has topped out the $64 million Research Support Facilities, located on the U.S. Department of Energy’s National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) campus in Golden, Colo. Designed by RNL and Stantec to achieve LEED Platinum certification and net zero energy performance, the 218,000-sf facility will feature natural ventilation through operable ...
| Aug 11, 2010
Stimulus funding helps get NOAA project off the ground
The award-winning design for the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s new Southwest Fisheries Science Center replacement laboratory saw its first sign of movement last month with a groundbreaking ceremony held in La Jolla, Calif. The $102 million project is funded primarily by the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act.
| Aug 11, 2010
National Intrepid Center tops out at Walter Reed
SmithGroup, Turner Construction, and the Intrepid Fallen Heroes Fund (IFHF), a nonprofit organization supporting the men and women of the United States Armed Forces and their families, celebrated the overall structural completion of the National Intrepid Center of Excellence (NICoE), an advanced facility dedicated to research, diagnosis, and treatment of military personnel and veterans sufferin...
| Aug 11, 2010
Alabama hospital gets a four-story addition
Birmingham, Ala.-based Hoar Construction has completed the North Tower addition at Thomas Hospital in Fairhope, Ala. The four-story, 123,000-sf addition accommodates an ER on the first floor, 32 private patient rooms and nursing support on the second and third floors, and room for 32 planned patient rooms on the top floor.
| Aug 11, 2010
America's Greenest Hospital
Hospitals are energy gluttons. With 24/7/365 operating schedules and stringent requirements for air quality in ORs and other clinical areas, an acute-care hospital will gobble up about twice the energy per square foot of, say, a commercial office building. It is an achievement worth noting, therefore, when a major hospital achieves LEED Platinum status, especially when that hospital attains 14 ...
| Aug 11, 2010
Hospital Additions + Renovations: 14 Lessons from Expert Building Teams
Two additions to a community hospital in Ohio that will double its square footage. A 12-story addition on top of an existing 12-story tower at Houston's M.D. Anderson Cancer Center. A $54 million renovation and addition at the University of Virginia Medical Center. A 67-bed, $70 million addition/renovation to a community hospital that is only five years old.
| Aug 11, 2010
Research Facility Breaks the Mold
In the market for state-of-the-art biomedical research space in Boston's Longwood Medical Area? Good news: there are still two floors available in the Center for Life Science | Boston, a multi-tenant, speculative high-rise research building designed by Tsoi/Kobus & Associates, Boston, and developed by Lyme Properties, Hanover, N.