School of Nursing and Student Community Center

Narratives

Architect Narrative

Client Goals:
The building owners created a unique process to review the design and building tactics and processes and to assess them based upon their sustainable attributes and full cost accounting methodologies.

The process founded on the principles of: Stewarding resources; Doing no harm; Benefiting others in the present and future; and Respecting the environment led them to build a 100 year building.

Program and Site:
Located on a dense urban site, the building design creates a positive edge to Fay Park, the only park in this area of the medical center. The park draws students to this site and provides a welcoming, shaded destination in the harsh climate.

The 194,000 square foot building serves as an academic facility educating tomorrow’s healthcare workers containing classroom and practical lab spaces that can be shared by all departments of the school. This balance redefined the building as a campus community center, serving the entire university population, while the nursing program is served by its required, dedicated spaces. A variety of meeting spaces — a 200 seat auditorium, a café, computer labs, and study lounges — accommodate many sizes of groups and learning styles.

The building is rooted in both nursing care and the idea of perpetuating health. It is at times sheltering, nurturing and healing and is also designed to interact, teach and to provide inspiration for well-being and health of individuals and communities. It sets new standards for visual acuity and cognitive learning through the use of daylight; for pedagogy and the capacity to learn and collaborate; and for flexibility, durability and reduced operating costs.

Design:
- The inclusive design process united 50 people at the fist meeting. Architects, engineers, educators, clients, and students contributed, collectively and individually, to define a healthy facility for building users and a functional facility for academics.

- Teaching labs imitate a healthcare environment to encourage real world learning.

- Energy performance optimization makes for a current annual energy cost savings of $76,838.00.

- Vertical atria, perimeter windows and a horizontal atrium provide all users access to natural light.

- Operable windows are installed throughout and could be open approximately 134 days a year in the Houston climate.

- Indoor air quality was improved with the specification of such materials as cotton insulation, linoleum, agri-fiber board, and low VOC paints, adhesives and sealants.

- For teaching and offices spaces, an under-floor air distribution system is employed, which increases energy efficiency and provides increased thermal comfort through individual user controls.

- Flexible building elements such as raised floor and demountable partitions allow for revisions to the interior space use, accommodating future changes.

- Multiple water reduction strategies amount to 63% reduction in total water use for the building compared to a baseline calculation.

- Exit stairs were moved to the exterior and are naturally ventilated.

- Shared support facilities reduce the building square footage.

- Building is highly pedagogical, placing on display many of the systems that are integral to its sustainability—rainwater harvesting, daylighting components, and innovative materials.

Educator Narrative

A Healthy Building for a Community of Healers

Oftentimes teachers don’t have the luxury of time and space to reflect about teaching and learning in relationship to the physical environment. When given these gifts of time and space extraordinary things can happen. This is a story that bears witness to such an occasion. This is a story about a community of healers located in a healthy environment. The residents of the community understand quite well the nature of healing and health. This is the very subject matter of which they teach. You see, these teachers promote an awareness of holistic health and strive to awaken in their students an understanding of the interactions among nursing, humans, health, and the environment. These four factors comprise the infrastructure of our philosophy, science, education and practice. The physical infrastructure of our new building was designed to support learning activities around these factors.

The story begins on moving day. We began the process of establishing a new workplace and learning environment. The early days were consumed with the logistics of setting up computers, finding the bathroom, and eating lunch, the immediate priorities. The first day of class followed, and faculty and students began to adjust to the new desks, classrooms, lighting, and audio-visual technologies. These were fairly predictable experiences. We thought we would settle in and be back to work as usual. We weren’t prepared for how the environment would change us.

The change began when students and teachers alike began to take time to reflect on how we were in harmony with our new physical space, a space in harmony with the environment. We sat in offices situated among tree branches. This created an illusion of blurred boundaries between the inside and outside. Through this shared awareness we learned more about our interconnectedness with each other and our connection to our environment. Through appreciative communication about our new awareness we began to create an environment of interpersonal healing through improved relationships.

Our physical location in classrooms with filtered lighting and computer labs with glass walls situated us in a world of new possibilities. We imagined “taking down walls” and “letting the light in” to examine complex health problems. We used the features of the facility as metaphors of learning, and in doing so the building became the actualized learning lab. We were constantly in contact with natural materials. These experiences lead us to reconnect with our environment, and we began to see health differently, more appreciatively. We have learned from our building because the infrastructure was based on what mattered most to the profession. We have a space in which to visualize and experience the inter-relatedness of nursing, humans, health, and environment. We have come to appreciate the value of a healthy environment in developing a healing community. Our facility is complete, and our learning community is thriving.