School of Nursing and Student Community Center

A benchmark for pedagogy that reflects holistic design and living health-centered lives

Information

Location Houston, Texas
Size 195,000 SF
Completion 2004
Certification LEED Gold

The University of Texas Health Science Center in Houston School of Nursing and Student Community Center is a LEED Gold certified facility and an AIA COTE Top Ten Green Project award recipient. The building strives for the highest levels of sustainable and pedagogical design. In many cases, this resulted in practices that are well beyond the guidelines found in LEED and required integrated design strategies. The School of Nursing and Student Community Center includes approximately 20,000 square feet of state-of-the-art classrooms, a 200-seat auditorium, cafe and dining room, bookstore, student lounge, student government offices, research laboratory and faculty offices. The building has been designed in several tiers, with the lowest two levels containing the most public spaces, and each successive floor containing increasingly more private functions, varying from classrooms to offices. Design in collaboration with Lake | Flato.

Impact + Innovation

The University of Texas Health Science Center in Houston is one of Houston’s premier teaching institutions for health-related professions. As such, it recognized its responsibility to take the lead in the creation of an environment that speaks to living health-centered lives. The School of Nursing utilized a holistic design approach that unites façade design, building systems, resource conservation and materials reclamation in the creation of a high performing, integrated educational and academic workplace facility. Goals of increased air quality, increased natural daylighting, reduced polluting emissions and run-off, and increased user satisfaction and productivity were achieved using the LEED rating system as a platform. Each façade of the building was also designed with unique fenestration and sun screening strategies to maximize building performance. In addition, rainwater storage tanks capture approximately 826,140 gallons of rainwater or “grey” water (non-potable water) per year fulfilling the estimated 42,000 gallons needed each month for toilet flushing and irrigation. The strategies had a quantifiable return on investment: the annual purchased utilities cost for the School of Nursing is approximately 60% less than comparable buildings on the campus.

Process

The School of Nursing and Student Community Center was designed with three primary guiding principles: Provide physical and visual connections to adjacent Fay Park; Express the interior functions within the exterior massing and materials; Maximize human health and productivity and minimize the impact on the environment. BNIM coordinated the participation of 17 firms and an equally large client group—the University of Texas School of Nursing, University of Texas Health Science Center in Houston, and the University’s Office of Facility Planning and Construction— in seeking a design response to the high aspirations and goals for this project. Each contributor’s perspective shaped the design throughout the process. BNIM collaborated with Lake | Flato to lead the envelope design and siting of this high-performance building, and BNIM led the interior design of the building.