Los Angeles-based CO Architects, alongside locally based Train & Partners Architects, designed the ERC. The four-level, 46,000-square-foot facility is being constructed for the UVA Health System on a tight site across from the UVA Medical Center, between the Emily Couric Clinical Cancer Center and a hospital parking garage.

“The Education Resource Center takes advantage of its strategic location and is designed as a simple connector to allow people access to the cancer center, hospital and garage,” said Paul Zajfen, FAIA, RIBA, design principal at CO Architects, in a statement.

Scheduled to open in 2016, the ERC will support educational programs and patient services. The basement will feature a pharmacy and will be used for diagnostic procedures, including radiology and MRI scans. The second floor will house multipurpose learning spaces and a procedural simulation lab for graduate medical education. It will provide access to an enclosed walkway that will lead over the street from the parking garage to the hospital lobby. The top floor, which is set back from the lower levels to minimize the building mass, will feature future offices, learning environments and additional simulation spaces.

CO Architects and Train & Partners Architects are working together to achieve a LEED Silver rating for the project. The building’s main façade will be sheathed in high-performance, fritted glass and shaded by a metal canopy extending from the second level. The facility’s rear exterior wall, located next to nearby railroad tracks, will be clad in brick. 


The ERC’s green roofs will absorb stormwater run-off and provide a garden-like visual to observe from the hospital’s patient rooms across the street. Grassy, sloping planes will extend from the concrete-paved plaza at the front of the building to the second level and basement. An outdoor staircase will offer access from the plaza to the second-floor educational spaces, and benches will provide waiting places next to the drop-off area at the street. 


CO Architects has a long history designing academic medical campuses, including the Claude Moore Medical Education Building for the UVA School of Medicine. The McCarthy and Donley’s team is also working on a separate $18 million HVAC project for the UVA Medical Center, which began in August 2013. The team is replacing 11 air-handling units in a two-year project expected to wrap up by August 2015.

The post Education Resource Center to Debut at UVA Medical Campus appeared first on School Construction News.

Designed by the Chicago and Atlanta offices of global architecture and design firm Perkins+Will, the two-story, $50 million facility is a haven for Case Western students. Combining public spaces, quiet study areas, 160 student organization offices and a variety of other dynamic spaces, the modern facility hopes to foster greater interaction and collaboration between all users.

The building was constructed at the apex of the original Western Reserve University and Case Institute of Technology campuses. A pass-through walkway extends throughout the building, connecting the two sites and exuding openness, transparency and interactivity.

“We were able to create a highly transparent building with public and private spaces that promote interaction among students, faculty and staff throughout their daily campus experience,” said Mark Jolicoeur, Perkins+Will managing principal on the project, in a statement.

The building, open 24 hours a day, seven days a week, was intended to serve as a base for both informal and formal gatherings for undergraduates, graduates, faculty, staff and community members. As such, the Perkins+Will project team divided the space between social and cultural areas, meeting and event spaces, and food and beverage areas with intersecting, public spaces to encourage socializing, collaborating, studying and relaxing, according to a release issued by the firm.

“In fact,” said Stephen Campbell, Case Western Reserve’s vice president for campus planning and facilities management, in a release, “we sought input from students in the planning and design. We expect them to make the center their own.”

As the facility was built in a spatially confined area, surrounded by a number of other campus buildings, Perkins+Will accommodated this potentially difficult site by stretching horizontally in three directions.

“We turned a challenging space into an asset,” said Ralph Johnson, global design direction and design principal for Perkins+Will. “The design respects the context and the constraints of the site it is on and, with the pass-through walkway, provides a major circulation path that energizes the interior of the building. We celebrated and defined these open spaces.”

Meanwhile, the new green-roofed center, which is designed to meet or exceed LEED silver standards, is also a model of environmental stewardship through its design, construction, and operation. The two-story, west-facing double-glass wall required an innovative engineering system to address solar heat-gain generated by late afternoon sunlight.

To reduce energy use and better control the interior environment, the team integrated fans that pull air to cool the space between the glass walls at high temperatures, while rooftop sensors trigger roller shades to be lowered when the sun is creating glare in the commons. During cold winter months, the glass walls allow warmer air to build up.

With the glass wall situated above a section of the parking garage containing an air shaft, the design team also had to calculate how to maintain proper air circulation into, and out of, the garage.

Donley’s of Cleveland served as the project’s construction manager, and local architecture CBLH Design provided support throughout the project.

The post New Case Western Facility Connects Campuses, Students appeared first on School Construction News.

Designed by the Chicago and Atlanta offices of global architecture and design firm Perkins+Will, the two-story, $50 million facility is a haven for Case Western students. Combining public spaces, quiet study areas, 160 student organization offices and a variety of other dynamic spaces, the modern facility hopes to foster greater interaction and collaboration between all users.

The building was constructed at the apex of the original Western Reserve University and Case Institute of Technology campuses. A pass-through walkway extends throughout the building, connecting the two sites and exuding openness, transparency and interactivity.

“We were able to create a highly transparent building with public and private spaces that promote interaction among students, faculty and staff throughout their daily campus experience,” said Mark Jolicoeur, Perkins+Will managing principal on the project, in a statement.

The building, open 24 hours a day, seven days a week, was intended to serve as a base for both informal and formal gatherings for undergraduates, graduates, faculty, staff and community members. As such, the Perkins+Will project team divided the space between social and cultural areas, meeting and event spaces, and food and beverage areas with intersecting, public spaces to encourage socializing, collaborating, studying and relaxing, according to a release issued by the firm.

“In fact,” said Stephen Campbell, Case Western Reserve’s vice president for campus planning and facilities management, in a release, “we sought input from students in the planning and design. We expect them to make the center their own.”

As the facility was built in a spatially confined area, surrounded by a number of other campus buildings, Perkins+Will accommodated this potentially difficult site by stretching horizontally in three directions.

“We turned a challenging space into an asset,” said Ralph Johnson, global design direction and design principal for Perkins+Will. “The design respects the context and the constraints of the site it is on and, with the pass-through walkway, provides a major circulation path that energizes the interior of the building. We celebrated and defined these open spaces.”

Meanwhile, the new green-roofed center, which is designed to meet or exceed LEED silver standards, is also a model of environmental stewardship through its design, construction, and operation. The two-story, west-facing double-glass wall required an innovative engineering system to address solar heat-gain generated by late afternoon sunlight.

To reduce energy use and better control the interior environment, the team integrated fans that pull air to cool the space between the glass walls at high temperatures, while rooftop sensors trigger roller shades to be lowered when the sun is creating glare in the commons. During cold winter months, the glass walls allow warmer air to build up.

With the glass wall situated above a section of the parking garage containing an air shaft, the design team also had to calculate how to maintain proper air circulation into, and out of, the garage.

Donley’s of Cleveland served as the project’s construction manager, and local architecture CBLH Design provided support throughout the project.

The post New Case Western Facility Connects Campuses, Students appeared first on School Construction News.